Shoppers do want food safety in their supermarket, but it varies.

With Australian Food Safety Week 2013 only weeks away, it is interesting to see that in recent research, more than half of the shoppers surveyed consider food safety to be important when shopping.

This year’s theme is about shopping and food safety, so this result is of particular interest to the supermarkets.

However the results show that it is generally only 57 percent of shoppers who consider food safety to be the most important factor when choosing a supermarket to use. The question that really needs to be asked is why the other 43 percent of people don’t?

The other issues that were considered important were; proximity, value, trading hours, quality and range, usable / clean trolleys, weekly specials and everything in one place.

Even though the large chains are now offering petrol discounts to bring in customers, the research found that only around 25 percent of the shoppers over 14 years old thought this was important enough to help determine where they shopped.

The research also found that the results were different depending upon which supermarket was involved, with both Coles and Woolworths shoppers having a higher food safety expectation. Aldi rated highly with price and value and IGA was primarily about convenience. This will obviously help set the growth strategies for each of these businesses.

The research was done by Roy Morgan research.

This article has been written by Rachelle Williams – The Green Food Safety Coach