University of Stirling’s clean food scale provides reference point for producers
A retail expert at the University of Stirling has helped develop ways to classify the burgeoning movement of clean food consumerism and provide clear understanding about what clean food is.
The trend – led by consumers’ demand for foods that are natural and additive-free, and to know where their food comes from – is estimated to reach $250 billion in value in 2025.
Retail and consumer behaviour experts at the University of Stirling and Ariel University in Israel have classified clean consumerism for the first time, using an 18-item scale and five dimensions: authenticity, transparency, familiarity, ease of use, and healthiness.
The universities said the Clean Food Consumerism (CFC) scale provides manufacturers, retailers, policymakers and researchers with a comprehensive definition and an important reference point when developing new products and guidelines for packaging information.
The researchers conducted surveys with almost 1,000 people to determine consumer preferences and motivations towards clean food. They combined the survey findings with existing research literature on clean food consumerism, to come up with prevailing themes.
Among the UK consumers surveyed, health benefits, ease of use, and production process transparency were considered important when shopping for clean food. The survey also found that price had a strong negative impact on whether British consumers would adopt clean eating.
Professor Leigh Sparks of the University of Stirling’s Institute for Retail Studies, and co-author of the study, said: “Consumers want their food to be made from natural ingredients, be additive-free, authentic, and non-genetically modified. These are the drivers of the clean food consumerism movement, and our CFC scale reflects those motivations and concerns.
“Our findings have implications for manufacturers of clean food, namely that they should focus not only on offering food that is healthier, familiar, and of high quality to consumers, but that they should emphasise the transparency of the production processes. Our hope is that the scale can form the basis for more detailed packaging and guidelines as this movement, and the market for related products, continues to grow.”
The authors said the next step should be introducing more regulations to further build consumer confidence and knowledge.
“The clean food consumerism movement is moving at a fast pace, and legislation needs to keep up with that,” said Professor Sparks.
Clean food consumerism: scale development and validation is published in Food Quality and Preference.
