A Roy Morgan Research survey of Australia’s main grocery buyers aged 14+ found that 55.8% of grocery buyers nominated ‘High standards of food safety’ as one of the factors that mattered most to them when supermarket-shopping, closely followed by a location close to home at 55.5%.
While the survey of 15,944 main grocery buyers 14+ (January-December 2014 (n=15,944) has some surprising findings, it found that low prices were only the sixth most important factor in choosing a supermarket or grocery store, which hadn’t changed much in five years.
“Australia’s 14,000,000 grocery buyers have some strong ideas when it comes to choosing which supermarket to shop at. Among the factors most likely to influence their decision are food safety, location and good value, while ‘add-on’ services such as photo developing and dry-cleaning tend not to rate very highly at all,” Roy Morgan said.
‘Good value’ (54.1%), ‘convenient trading hours’ (52.6%) and ‘hygienically prepared food’ (52.2%) also featured among the five qualities grocery buyers value most in a supermarket.
The survey found some interesting variations between shoppers that live in country areas and capital cities.
A location close to home is the factor that most capital-city grocery buyers consider important (even ahead of high food safety standards), but it comes in tenth for country-dwellers. Similarly, city folks are more likely than country residents to rate convenient trading hours as very important when choosing a supermarket.
While ‘good quality fresh fruits and vegetables’ is the second-most important feature for country grocery buyers (after food safety standards), it ranks only ninth for city shoppers.
Michele Levine, CEO, Roy Morgan Research, said: “With almost eight million people naming high standards of food safety and a location close to home as factors that influence their choice of supermarket, these are less an option and more an obligation for supermarkets that wish to remain viable.”