Page Update: May 20, 2005

Executive Summary

The 1999 Nova Scotia Food Consumer Study presents a meaningful characterization of the Nova Scotia food consumer. The food and eating habits of the Nova Scotia food consumer are detailed throughout the report with various segmentation, lifestyle and demographic profiles. This report will provide an in-depth examination of the attitudes and actions of the Nova Scotia food consumer. The 1999 study integrated results from the 1996. Data was compared to discover the trends and patterns of the Nova Scotia consumer where applicable. The questionnaire has changed to enhance the validity and meaningfulness of the information collected and comparisons were made with the common survey questions.

• The Nova Scotia food consumer tends to purchase groceries for an average of 2.86 people.
• The majority of households have one primary grocery shopper. The secondary grocery shopper tends to be male. Fifty-five percent of secondary grocery shoppers were male in the 1999 study. This may increase if retailers and manufacturers communicated with males through promotional vehicles. This segment of men may be the early adopters as noted in the 1996 study.
• Nova Scotian food consumers do not take special considerations related to health, diet or allergies when purchasing groceries. However, the consumers who tend to take special considerations when purchasing groceries tend to be health and diet conscious.

The 1999 Nova Scotia Food Consumer study identified seven lifestyle segments. These segments were the ‘Environmentally concerned', ‘Well organized', ‘Community oriented', ‘Economy minded', ‘Adventurous', ‘Weight conscious', and ‘Wellness' segment.

Grocery shopping in Nova Scotia was either a weekly or biweekly experience for most Nova Scotians. The average time spent shopping for groceries was 51 minutes. It is important to note that Nova Scotians tended to shop for 30 to 60 minutes.

Nova Scotians, like the rest of Canada, utilize the supermarket or grocery store for their primary grocery shopping. This study identified that Nova Scotia food consumers tended to patronize U-picks, Roadside food stands, and Farmers markets. Fresher produce and lower cost products were the main reasons why consumers patronized U-picks, Roadside food stands, and Farmers markets. Supermarkets and Super stores are expanding their produce lines and this will contest the Farmers markets, U-picks and Roadside food stands if the trend towards one stop shopping increases.

Most consumers live busy lives and are faced with numerous time constraints. People are depending on pre-cooked meals and mostly prepared meals, eating out is an alternative for people that are on the go and heat and serve meals are popular. The majority of consumers have at least one evening meal per week that was mostly prepared when it was purchased.

The perception of local products by the Nova Scotia food consumer was limited to products grown in Nova Scotia. Imported food products were considered to be products grown outside of Nova Scotia or Canada. The product label has been shown to be an important form of identification for Nova Scotia grown produce.

Product freshness, appearance, quality, taste, cost, better for you, safer to eat, and good value for the money were the attributes that were tested for "local" products in the 1999 study. Nova Scotians expected local products to be the same or better than "imported" products in regard to all of the mentioned attributes.

Despite the large number of people living in rural areas, consumers preferred to live near a farm if they had the option. ‘Environmental certification of farms' was a term which was not known by consumers, however, consumers felt that products raised on an environmentally certified farm would be better for the environment, chemical free, better tasting, and cheaper. Consumers were concerned about the way food was grown and were aware of issues related to the ethical treatment of animals. The consumers of Nova Scotia faithfully believed that the farmers play an important role in protecting the environment. A major finding was the fact that there were essentially no significant difference between urban and rural consumers, which was quite surprising.

Consumers indicated that free range turkeys, eggs, and chickens were available for purchase within Nova Scotia. Organically grown vegetables were also perceived to be presently available in Nova Scotia. Forty-seven percent of Nova Scotians believed that genetically modified fruits and vegetables were available for purchase in Nova Scotia.

Consumers have purchased organic foods within the last twelve months because they viewed them to be ‘healthier' and ‘better for you'.

Milk from BST treated cattle is presently unavailable in Canada, however, almost forty percent of Nova Scotians thought milk from cattle that were treated with BST was presently available in Nova Scotia. This suggests that either Nova Scotians are not educated on some agricultural issues or they have low interest levels on items that haven't received heavy media attention. Consumers did however, feel that milk from cattle were treated with BST should be labeled to identify it as such because they were very concerned about consuming milk from BST treated cattle.