As a wife and mother of two young boys, every day I am conscious of the food that I put on the table. I’d say that 95% of the time I am the one that is planning and making the meals, writing out the grocery lists and buying the groceries with little or no input from the men in the house. Making decisions that will please my hubby and my two year old is sometimes a challenge, but usually I can satisfy both of them with the same meal!
I have recently come across a national survey by Fleishman-Hillard called Cart to Kitchen 2013: Slicing Into Moms’ Food Decisions that talked to more than 1,000 moms about their food buying habits and their food choices.
According to the results, 96 percent of the moms surveyed plan to make changes to their food-buying habits this year. 96 percent! Almost 7 out of 10 mothers said that they want to buy healthier food, half said they want to buy less processed food and are reading food labels now more than last year and 29 percent want to buy more organic foods.
Organization is a key to mothers’ buying habits this year; 80 percent of moms shop with a grocery list (I do!), 67 percent want to prepare a weekly meal plan (I’d like to on a regular basis), half of the moms want to make meals ahead of time and freeze them and one third want to make less trips to the grocery store (definitely!).
Based on the feedback from this survey, moms are turning to websites like allrecipes.com, Pinterest and Food Network. About 3 out of every 4 moms are looking to magazines and bloggers for new recipes to try out. “Moms are turning to their peers online and off for information about food – from general to more specific information about genetically modified organisms, pesticides and other food safety topics,” said Kristie Sigler, senior vice president at Fleishman-Hillard. “This study showed that moms place higher priority on the opinions of bloggers and peers than that of experts like doctors and dietitians – an important takeaway for food marketers.”
This is where we come in. CommonGround is a grass-roots movement to foster this conversation among women – on farms and in cities – about where our food comes from. Another recent survey showed that nearly 7 out of 10 moms somewhat agree or totally agree that farmers should be a key resource for individuals seeking out information related to food and farming, yet only 1 out of 5 moms seek information from farmers. We want to be your go-to resource about farming and food questions.
Many of the CommonGround volunteers have blogs or use social media to reach out to consumers on a daily basis. There is a lot of information that we as farmers can provide to you, the consumer. So, if you have any specific question, please let us know! You can either leave it in the comment section below or contact another volunteer through the national CommonGround website.
So, as you are making your food decisions this year, reach out to a farmer to learn more about where your food comes from. You’ll be surprised at how helpful and informative we can be! I know that I have learned a lot from the other volunteers over the past two years!
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