The New York Produce Show and Conference welcomed Dr. Ramu Govindasamy, professor, Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics at Rutgers University, to its platform of educational microsessions last week.
With a presentation entitled, “Opportunities for Organic Ethnic Greens and Herbs: A Study from the Eastern Coastal USA,” Dr. Govindasamy spoke of a study done on a niche demand for foods in ethnic populations.
The study derived after he noticed an alarming number of retail ethnic stores not offering any sort of organic ethnic produce.
“It was a glaring omission, and we wondered if people wanted to buy organic so we examined the issues for why retailers weren’t offering it,” he says. “We went back to the data we collected for a 2010 study and saw that more than 70 percent of the people we interviewed wanted to buy organic ethnic greens. Even though there is a lot of demand, they’re not offered.”
According to Dr. Govindasamy, the main objective of the study was to gather market information on ethnic customer behavior toward willingness to buy organic ethnic greens and herbs in the east coast region of the U.S., and look at how it would play out in agricultural production to meet the increasing demand.
“The ethnic populations along the East Coast are growing at high percentages, and for the study we looked at Asian Indians, Chinese, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans,” he says. “We looked at whether they are willing to buy grains, and looked into the details of 16 states along the East Coast from Maine to Florida.”
The study had 1,117 participants in all and examined the types of advertisements that would influence one’s decision to purchase.
Key findings showed that when it came to age, the 36 to 50 group was most likely to buy organic ethnic greens, coming in at 40 percent. The 21 to 35 age group came in at 27 percent; while older consumers between 51 to 65 totaled 21 percent.
Source: PerishableNews.com
