Berchtesgadener Land asks consumers about shopping
How has the coronavirus pandemic changed grocery shopping behaviour? Are customers relying more on regional goods because the crisis has exposed the limits of global supply chains? Or is a cheap price the only thing that matters in times like these? The Berchtesgadener Land dairy wanted to know this and therefore asked 2,500 consumers about it online.
Over 80% of those surveyed paid attention to freshness and regionality during the lockdown – only half (42.1%), however, increasingly went for low prices.
Almost all regional buyers have a common goal: 96.6% buy local products to support regional agriculture with their purchases. This means that solidarity with local farmers is ahead of the environmental aspect of short transport routes with 78.6%.
“I am particularly pleased that almost all of the respondents stated that they buy regionally in order to support local agriculture. It is immensely important for our farmers to know that there is enormous interest among the population in who produces our food and how,” says managing director Bernhard Pointner.
Statements such as “I think it’s important that the farmers get reasonable prices for their work” and “I buy regionally because small farmers are also important” impress Georg Baumgartner, who is the district chairman of the Bavarian Farmers’ Association. “Sustainable agriculture is not a question of size, but of innovation,” he emphasises.
For him, the results give hope that the dairy industry in the mountain area has a future. Two thirds of the respondents also stated that since the pandemic started, regional and local origins have become even more important to them when it comes to food.