In light of the recent butcher meat origin testing by the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA), this week's Consumer Insights study by Empathy Research examines how important provenance is to Irish consumers.
Of 899 participants, almost 6 out of 10 (59%) Irish consumers said that they 'always' buy Irish meat. When it comes to gender breakdown, it was women (61%) who were most likely to 'always' buy Irish meat, while men (57%) were slightly less likely to do so. When broken down into age-groups, the middle-aged 35-44 years (59%) group were the most likely to 'always' choose to buy Irish meat than all other age groups; 18-34 years (57%), 45-54 years (53%), 55 + (56%).
The survey also asked those who don't 'always' buy Irish meat why not, and almost a quarter (23%) cited budget concerns as their main reason for not doing so. This was more common among men (30%) compared to women (19%). Almost a fifth, however (18%) of those who don’t purchase Irish meat regularly mentioned that they have 'never thought about it', driven mostly by younger age groups: 28% of 18-35 year olds and 34% of 35-44 year olds don’t consider origin when buying meat, compared to 5% of 45-54 year olds and 4% of 55+ year olds.
Just 11% of those surveyed that don’t frequently buy Irish-sourced meat said that they simply have no interest where their meat comes from. Although this was more dominant amongst male (24%) than female respondents (4%), older age groups were less concerned about provenance than younger groups; 24% of 45-54 year olds and 20% 55+ year olds cited a lack of interest as their main reason for not buying Irish meat.
Of those who regularly buy Irish meat, two thirds (67%) feel that it is important for them to know where their meat comes from, with 71% of women and 63% of men believing provenance is important. Additionally ,more than 6 out of 10 (64%) participants also mentioned they buy Irish meat because they like to 'support local'. Age-wise, 69% of 35-44 year olds buy Irish meat to ‘support local’, which is noticeably higher than all other age groups; 18-34 (64%), 45-54 (64%) and 55+ (59%).
Almost a third (32%) of Irish meat purchasers said that they feel Irish meat is healthier, with more males (35%) than females (29%) of this opinion.
Click here for more information from Empathy Research.
© 2014 - Checkout Magazine by Genna Patterson
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