October 7, 2020

Local Food Wins the New Normal

What does our latest consumer survey reveal about grocery shoppers' new priorities?

Joe Blunda

Forager has just updated its latest consumer survey, and the initial results are more revealing than ever -  not only do consumers want more local food, they will spend more and switch grocers to find what they are looking for.

Throughout the height of the Pandemic, consumers have shifted quickly and overwhelmingly to farm direct purchasing, preferring the safety, reliability and nutrition of local, fresh food produced in their own communities over national brands and big box retail stores.

And now, as the weather turns cooler in much of the country and school has resumed, consumers are returning to shopping at grocery stores, and expect grocers to bring the products purchased at farmers’ markets into the store.

COVID-19 Is Changing How We Eat

While they have been baking and cooking comfort foods, consumers have also used the Pandemic as an opportunity to improve their diets by incorporating healthy, nutritious foods sourced locally.

Even now, as we enter the harvest season, consumers remain unsatisfied with local selection: 2 out of 3 consumers in our survey would switch grocers to one offering more local food.

And consumers want to buy more from grocers who deliver the products they prefer: 78% would buy more from their grocer if that grocer expanded their local food selection.

These consumer trends aren’t lost on grocers - more and more are working to expand their local food programs, only to realize how difficult it can be to find, onboard, manage, transact, pay, and build long-term relationships with a growing number of local producers.  The manual, slow process of buying local food has been a consistent obstacle.

At Forager, we are committed to fixing this problem for grocers who want true transparency and scalability and are ready to expand their local selection to grow loyalty and sales.

Talk to us next week at the Produce Marketing Association’s annual #freshsummit, or later this month at Shoptalk Meetup #shoptalk!  Email Annie Finstein, our National Sales Manager, at annie@goforager.com to set up a virtual meeting.