Introduction
The primary goal of the consumer research, commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, was to understand consumers' opinions regarding the perception of country of origin information on the labeling of two categories of products – bulk and packaged potatoes and meat sold "by weight." An additional thematic area explored in the study was consumers' interest in the graphical presentation of the country of origin through flags or images of the country's flag.
The entire study was conducted by our team, covering the preparation of the questionnaire, study execution, statistical data analysis, and the final report.
Execution
We conducted the measurement using the CAWI technique through our proprietary opinion survey panel: http://www.badanie-opinii.pl/. We gathered opinions from a total of 1,000 consumers, selected based on their place of residence (voivodeship), gender, and age. Respondents were also characterized in terms of education and financial status. This distribution of the research sample ensured the representativeness of the study.
Results
Among the key research findings worth noting are:
- Polish consumers most often pay attention to the price and product name when making purchases.
- During shopping, a small percentage of people primarily pay attention to the Country/Place of origin (5.7% of respondents), producer identification (3.9% of respondents), or other information such as "non-GMO," "Product of Poland," eco-labels, and "Know Good Food" labels (2.8% of respondents).
- Poles prefer to receive information about purchased products in written form – this was the opinion of 66.3% of respondents. Almost one-third of respondents (31.1%) indicated graphical representation as the preferred way of presenting information.
- Most consumers are aware of the requirement to provide information about the country of origin of purchased meat. Furthermore, consumers not only know that information about the country of origin/slaughter should be provided to them but also consider this information when purchasing "by weight" meat.
- According to 79.7% of respondents, displaying the country's flag with information about the origin of meat would be helpful during shopping. Visualization of the country of origin in the form of a flag would be particularly useful for younger people (up to 39 years old) and for men.
- For potato buyers, an important piece of information is the country of origin – approximately 77.0% of respondents answered affirmatively to this question.
