-By Phil Lempert

Food 2020: The Consumer as CEO, a new trend-tracking report from Ketchum, offers insights into what our shoppers are thinking about, and also looking for in the aisles and from the companies that produce their foods. Among its findings are some real surprises—but it's no surprise that consumers should be seen as running the show.

This consumer survey tracked attitudes and behaviors in shoppers living in the United States, as well as the United Kingdom, Germany, Argentina, and China, and it finds more similarities in what consumers are looking for across these five countries than one might expect."It's all about the consumer, who is making decisions faster and more holistically then we have ever seen," says Linda Eatherton, a Ketchum partner and the director of its Global Food & Nutrition Practice. "Our research reinforces that consumers want it all and want to know it all, and if brands want to stay relevant, they must be able connect and deliver on all expectations and desires."

It's not an easy task to make that connection and deliver on those expectations; I know this personally, as Ketchum reached out to me and others to help draft the consumer questions that hopefully would bring us all to the future faster.

Keep the fun in food

Now, in reviewing the research our questions generated, I see a number of "wows" that clearly live up to Eatherton's wake-up-call strategy.

Wake-up Call No. 1: Consumers like playing with food. In fact, the research showed that in all the nations surveyed, with the exception of China, consumers view food as "enjoyment," with the view that it's the "key to health" far less prominent. (In China, however, "key to health" was the No. 1 response.) As countries and cultures develop economically, it's clear their shoppers move further away from necessity, sustenance, and nourishment, to seek other benefits from food.

Wake-up Call No. 2: Taste is king, but not for long. Emerging on Ketchum's radar are shoppers who pay much more attention to the ingredients in their food, and where those ingredients come from. On average, six out of 10 consumers across all five countries say they want to be able to recognize all of the ingredients on a food label.

The insight? Consumers have become spoiled by choice and spooked by issues, and will demand that brands clean up their labels and sourcing practices.

Wake-up Call No. 3: Brands are losing their relevance. The survey found across all countries that "taste, quality, and price" are the top food-shopping considerations, with only a third of respondents on average naming "brand name" as a top consideration.

Eatherton warns that if CPG brands lose their relevance, their innovations in taste, health attributes, and research will come to a screeching halt, and we can't allow that to happen.

Wake-up Call No. 4: Price isn't the barrier to eating healthy; rather, it appears that lack of knowledge and poor taste are the roadblocks. In the United States, real or perceived "taste concern" ranked as the No. 1 obstacle, while "knowledge" is the major barrier in China, Argentina, and Germany.

Wake-up Call No. 5: Local is hot, but will we sacrifice taste or pay more for it? Respondents in China were the least concerned about paying more, and the most willing to embrace the local-food trend, while Argentineans were the most concerned and least willing.

Across all countries, more than two-thirds of consumers think that at least some of their foods come from other countries, but they grossly underestimate just how much. Here in the United States, 45 percent of all fruit sold is imported, as is 80 percent of seafood. In China, meanwhile, just 4 percent of foodstuffs are imported.

The No. 1 global food priority must be to improve human nutrition and make food safer. Germans, Chinese, and Argentineans say that if they were the c.e.o., they would use their power to solve obesity and make foods safe. Making foods with more nutrients per calorie is also a high priority among consumers across all countries, with Argentina leading the way. Consumers in China, once again surprisingly, have the highest percentage of respondents who link the importance of good food choices with reducing their health care costs.

The top line from the Food 2020 survey is that consumers indeed expect food to be different in 2020. The foods that are both safe and have health benefits comprise the core of that expectation.


Taste is the top consideration

Three-quarters of respondents today consider taste when making food purchases, followed by price and quality.


Source: Food 2020: The Consumer as CEO, Ketchum