Mission:

To give a voice to consumers, by gathering survey information on their opinions, preferences and experiences with food and health, for the benefit of all Manitobans.

Objectives:

• Evaluate consumer attitudes and perceptions towards food and health. The research team will be able to see what foods consumers are adopting, trends in taste and trends in food preparation.

• Measure and identify changes in consumer opinions over time and across consumer sub-groups, and the factors determining such changes and differences.
  

• Monitor the acceptance of new food innovations throughout the study, such as healthy food options.

• Analyze the implications of the identified trends in consumer attitudes for stakeholders, through the use of quarterly reports on the website and periodic newsletter.

• Disseminate the identified trends and their implications to stakeholders in a timely manner so as to support business, policy decision-making, and program development.

Benefits:

Anticipated benefits include the exploration of food trends, food innovations, policy formulation, and program development. Further to this, the study will:

• Provide stakeholders with useful information regarding changing consumer attitudes and perceptions related to food and health.

• Reinforce, and indeed transform, the relationship between the researchers engaged in the Manitoba Consumer Monitor Food Panel, policy-makers, agri-food businesses and society via active engagement.

• Inform scientific researchers of emerging innovation or commercialization opportunities.

• Analyze and identify regional differences and consumer sub-groupings by surveying the panel over time and creating a detailed ‘picture’ of the panel members.

• Measure attitudes and self-reported behaviors to create a baseline to compare and contrast with future behaviors.

• Explore attitudes towards a range of new food innovations in order to determine what future food products consumers want to see.

• Measure the impact of specific events, for example outbreaks of food-borne illness or new research findings on the relation between food and health.

• Provide a connection for survey consumers, by relating attitudes under sudden changes, and comparing them to the baselines attitudes collected before the event in question.