Dive Brief:
- For health-conscious consumers, non-GMO now takes priority over organic, according to the 2014 Market Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability MamboTrack Natural & Organic Consumer Market Research Study. The survey found that 80% of consumers look for non-GMO items.
- In identifying the motivation for buying a particular brand, 56% of buyers said it was non-GMO. That's ahead of the 52% who said organic.
- Other key categories for shoppers were gluten-free, a concern for 70% of shoppers and rising, as well as antibiotic-free (ABF) poultry, a concern for 80%, up from 74% last year.
Dive Insight:
As Karen Herther and Bethany Stanley, Principals of Market LOHAS who direct the MamboTrack Research say, "From non-GMO to gluten-free to ABF, shoppers are seeking transparency and reading labels focusing more on what's not in the products they buy." Those concerns are translating into demand that manufacturers are coming to meet, as we've seen in the increasing number of products going for non-GMO labels and the poultry industry's shift away from antibiotics, as well as the increasing demand for gluten-free products. The fact that GMOs come first for consumers is probably due to the work of organizations like GMO Inside, who shines a light on the issue when calling for major brands to rid their products of GMO ingredients.