Radical
Statistics
Big brother doesn't understand you: the success of a GM food no-one wanted to buy
Peter Quaife
Introduction
New technology is enabling the food industry to gather ever more information about the purchasing habits of their customers. This article explores how such data can be manipulated intentionally, or otherwise, to reflect the agenda of those who collect it, and how their interpretation can provide a dramatically false picture of the views of consumers.
During 1996, the first genetically modified food available in the UK, a tomato purée, went on sale in some supermarkets. The launch was considered by those involved to be a success. Sales were unusually high for a new product, and demand outstripped supply. Clear labelling, information leaflets and the provision of non-genetically modified (GM) alternatives led to it being held up as an example of good practice by both industry and consumer groups. The way seemed clear for a gradual roll-out of more GM products to an eager public. Subsequent events, however, revealed a public far more hostile to GM food than the companies involved in this early launch realised. The reasons behind this hostility are largely beyond the scope of this article. However, there is evidence to show that the shift in public opinion was more apparent than real, and that the retailers' interpretation of their sales figures for the purée was more a reflection of their own agendas and naiveté than the views of their customers.
Much of the material for this article was gathered unintentionally while conducting interviews for a PhD examining linkages between personal values and professional action in expert discourse. The interview material is presented using pseudonyms, and all company names are replaced by xxx(. All interviewees were involved in some way with the GM tomato purée.
Test marketing or promotion?
The food industry represents itself as a passive respondent to the wishes of consumers, according to the laws of perfect competition beloved of schoolboy economics texts. Paul expresses this in typical fashion in the following passage in which he delegates responsibility for the product he sells to the consumer through the provision of choice and information:
Paul: [...] You put the stuff out there, and believe me if customers don't want it, they won't buy it. It's a fundamental rationale behind retailing, we know that from the sort of different product ranges that we launch... ...some of them bomb very quickly, some of them get taken on. You can only sell what customers want to buy and by giving them the widest choice possible but matching that with clear information, so that they can make an informed choice.
Brian applies this notion of the retailer as a moral provider of options when he describes the launch of the tomato purée, where he justifies the continued presence of the product in his stores by sales volumes - hence by the actions of customers rather than the actions of his own company:
Brian: [...] But the fact is you put it on sale, you give people a choice, and most new products, they start off on a high, then sales trickle down to a constant level. This started off very low, but the sales per store doubled from when they first went on sale. So within about six months, it went up to reach a peak, and it stayed at that peak until we sold out... And we've got more coming in from... from the next year's crop. So it's worth selling, and we're not a charity, we haven't given it shelf space... It's earned its place on the shelves like everything else...
However, he then goes on to explain how his company made every effort to maximise sales during the test launch by selling the product cheaply in stores which were known to have price sensitive customers with a willingness to accept new technology. Here, then, the role of the retailer in this launch is starting to shift from simply gathering information about the acceptability of a new technology towards the promotion of that technology:
Brian: [...] We deliberately put it in those stores where tomato purée sold well... Which is mainly towns where students are, because buying it in a can is the cheapest way per gram to buy it. If you buy it in tubes it's more expensive. OK, it stays longer in the fridge, but it is ideal for students, which is interesting.... therefore a lower age range customer, therefore more acceptable... more likely to accept things new - they'll try it.
Andrew is more candid about this aspect of the launch, outlining how the suppliers of the product were pressured into artificially reducing the price, which dovetails with Brian's comments about targeting price sensitive customers. He also explicitly states that the goal of the launch was to gain acceptance for the technology.
Andrew: [...] And it would have died at xxx( if a few of us hadn't really pushed it and got xxx( to agree a two pence reduction in the can price in order to deliver sufficient customer benefit to make it worthwhile us selling ... and it just wasn't pursued to that extent at xxx(, we tasted it, it didn't taste a lot different, end of story. And it was really, it was really someone saying 'Yeah, but we would like to try and get this technology on the shelves. Come on xxx( give us a customer benefit and then we'll go for it.'
Further evidence of the promotional nature of this launch comes from the information leaflets made available to customers. Space precludes an examination of this aspect, but the leaflets emphasised the position of those in favour of the technology, while playing down or ignoring entirely the position of those against.
Here then, we see an important difference between the portrayal of the launch and its execution. In the first quote, Paul talks about what customers want to buy, which implies that by collecting sales data for the GM purée, the retailer can assess the acceptability of the new technology to customers. However, subsequent quotes show that considerable efforts were made to increase sales of the product beyond what they would have been if outlets had been selected randomly and price had reflected production costs. Thus, the sales data collected reflected not customer wants, but how much a particular group of customers could be persuaded to buy.
To some extent, the confusion here between research and promotion does not appear to be deliberate. To the retailers, the rhetoric of consumer sovereignty and the practice of product promotion are almost instinctive, and the issue of a conflict between the two does not seem to have been considered. However, the issue of the subsidised selling price was volunteered by only one interviewee, which contrasted markedly with otherwise homogenous responses. This seems to be clear evidence of deliberate, rather than de facto promotion.
It is easy to see, given this blurring of research and promotion, how the collected sales data could be misinterpreted to give an optimistic picture of public acceptance of GM food, which in turn would lead to those using this information being relatively unprepared for public hostility. However, the deliberate aspect of the promotion indicates that the exercise was used to create a seemingly successful launch, in order to pave the way for future introductions of more GM food.
The meaning of a purchase
The charge of creating an exaggerated picture of public acceptance does not undermine the acceptance demonstrated by the target group. This section seeks to show that even if acceptance levels were adjusted to take account of the atypical sample used, the result would remain artificially high.
Underlying much of the previous section is the assumption that the purchase of a product indicates satisfaction with that product, and in the presence of clear labelling and information, acceptance of the process used to produce it. However, for a variety of reasons, this is not necessarily the case. In the following passage, Andrew is pressed about the sanitising effect the supermarket environment has on the products it sells. He acknowledges that the effect exists, but does not interpret this as being problematic for his organisation in terms of the need to research in greater depth the views of consumers, or to raise issues with consumers. By portraying this as the role of protest groups, he removes responsibility from the retailer. In essence, he accepts that the supermarket conceals from consumers the nature of the purchases they are making, but behaves as though it does not:
Andrew: [...] I mean, you take the example of the salmon that's been developed by Aqua Bounty ... It grows at 46 times the conventional rate. Now I don't know what that would deliver to our customers, but let's say smoked salmon at half its current price, so we put on the shelves smoked salmon at two different prices, one conventional, one GMO, and leave it to our customers to decide, and guess which they'd choose? PQ: Well it's going to be the cheaper one, isn't it? Obviously. But I suppose there's always the problem, isn't there with the supermarket, it's very difficult to equate what you see on the shelves with the entire food chain. So despite your best efforts to inform your customers which you, I mean you are doing, I've looked at some of the stuff that's been put out, you can't get away from this sanitised thing that's on the shelf which bears very little relation to the ... And so, I think, there is a certain danger in relying on customer choice within the shop because it's extremely difficult for them to actually take on board all the issues which if they did take them on board they perhaps would buy things differently. I mean, particularly that might be the case with meat and animal welfare. Andrew: Well as I say we do try and inform customers, but at the end of the day they're either interested or they're not. And if they're not interested its our business to try and give them their stock items to try and give them information but if they're not actually intrinsically interested then I'm not sure where there is an awful lot more we can or should do to make them interested. That's for Greenpeace and so on.
This point is mirrored by a Unilever sponsored study undertaken by Lancaster University1 at the time of the launch. Here the respondent is explaining that a supermarket is not a place where they feel able to consider the issues raised by GM food.
Well you'd think it was, you'd look at it and think, oh that's good because it makes it easier, but then if you thought about it any more deeply than that, you'd think 'well why have they done it?' But you're in a rush when you go shopping so you look at things that are easier to do or whatever. (Grove-White et al. 1997: 43)
This passage implies that for the shopper in a hurry, the GM purée is not a new product at all, but an everyday item to be selected quickly perhaps based on price or familiarity of brand name.(2) On this basis, each can of conventional purée sold could be argued to represent a consumer who has decided to pay more to avoid the GM variety, whereas those who bought the GM version may be less likely to have made a judgement on the technology at all. Unfortunately the relative sales of conventional/modified purées were not discussed, but this point calls into question the success of the launch by setting the product apart from other launches where the novelty of the product is clearly visible to the rushing shopper.
The Unilever study also found that powerful notions of inevitability and powerlessness influenced purchasing decisions, with the result that GM products could be bought by individuals opposed to the technology:
These feelings of inevitability seemed to reflect a felt absence of choice and a sense that, realistically speaking, the technology was unstoppable. Such inevitability appeared to lie behind feelings of passive resignation in the majority of groups. (Ibid.: 53)
Finally, the study highlights several reasons why individuals would buy GM tomato purée (in addition to the above), most notably price, but found no support for the changed characteristics of the purée.
The retailers' attitude to undertaking qualitative research into the attitudes of their customers on this issue seems to be one of reluctance. Andrew's comments in the following passage are typical, where he seems afraid of stirring up a hornets nest of resentment simply by asking the question. He evidently feels that letting sleeping dogs lie is the best strategy. When asked whether or not his company surveyed customers he claimed:
Andrew: Yes we have done. And the situation really is that most customers don't know about it and if they do, it really is very much ... And as soon as you say genetic engineering and you tell them then they start to say 'Oh I'm a bit concerned about that', whereas they weren't until you asked them. So there is an element of that... And if you look at, we are getting probably less than 50 letters a week on this, compared with total phone calls and letters together of about 12000 a week. PQ: Right, so you interpret that as to mean that consumers aren't actually terribly bothered about it? Andrew: I think if you asked them, they would be concerned, and they would expect us to have a policy which would safeguard their interests. [...]
Conclusions
From the evidence presented here it is evident that the use of sales figures for GM tomato purée as a measure for the acceptability of GM food in general is problematic. There appears to have been confusion, some apparently deliberate, some not, about whether the launch represented research or promotion. In the event, the launch was promotional, but the sales figures collected were treated as though it had been research. This appears to have led to an inflated picture of the demand for GM food.
More fundamentally, it is not certain that the purchase of a product, however clearly labelled, and however much information is made available actually indicates satisfaction with the product. The purchase may be the result of a rushed, unthinking grab from the shelf, or the feeling that avoiding GM food is a futile gesture in the face of the inevitable.
Finally, in the light of the above, it is by no means clear cut that for the purchaser, GM tomato purée represented a new product at all, and that a decision relating to the acceptability of GM food was made primarily by those who chose to pay more to avoid it. Indeed it seems possible that there was virtually no support for the product itself among consumers, and that the picture painted by the retailers' sales data was an illusion.
Evidence was available at the time of the launch, showing that GM food was deeply unpopular, but those involved in the project chose to ignore the evidence (most interviewees had seen the Unilever study), and relied instead on a simplistic model based on sales figures relative to other new products. It is, of course, much easier to write this article with the benefit of hindsight than it would have been to assess public opinion on GM food early in 1997. However, it seems reasonable to assume that the data collected by the retailers was distorted by their desire to see GM foods accepted by their customers, a distortion which was amplified by their failure to investigate the meaning of the purchases they had recorded.
In more general terms, this article has revealed a mechanism whereby through the use of apparently value-neutral statistics and attractive rhetoric, retailers seek, deliberately or otherwise, to absolve themselves of responsibility for the nature of the products they sell. This is not to imply that sales figures or other quantitative data collected by retailers about their customers are meaningless, although in this instance, that seems to be the case. Sales data are a representation of customer opinion, but the validity of that representation depends on how accurately the issues involved can be expressed numerically. Were the product in question a new flavour of potato crisps, where no issues of any great importance are raised relative to other potato crisps, or indeed other food in general, a qualitative addendum to the sales figures will be of little use, beyond perhaps a few focus groups providing guidance for improvement. Were the product a box of free range eggs, the difficulty of conveying effectively in a supermarket environment the difference between the animal welfare standards applicable might create a gap between buying behaviour and consumer opinion. However, the issues involved with free range eggs are relatively straightforward and have few repercussions beyond the confines of the poultry industry. In contrast the issues raised by the first GM food to go on sale are probably more complex than for any other single product supermarkets have ever sold. Not only does it represent a technology with the potential to revolutionise food production, impacts are probable on the environment, food security, control of food production (particularly by multinational corporations), world trade, democracy and humanity's relationship with the rest of nature. An attempt to represent public perceptions of such complex issues purely through the use of sales figures is unlikely to yield useful results. However, this article shows retailers used such results to shift responsibility for the acceptance of GM food from themselves to their customers.
NOTES
- Much work has been done on public perceptions of biotechnology. However, this study is particularly relevant here as it was undertaken at the time of the launch of the GM purée and uses it as an example for discussion. It also achieves the depth of investigation necessary to unpack the complexities of the issue which is absent from many other studies.
- The GM purée was sold as supermarket 'own brand'.
REFERENCES
Grove-White, R. Macnaghten, P. Mayer, S. and Wynne, B. (1997), Uncertain World: Genetically Modified Organisms, Food and Public Attitudes in Britain, Lancaster: Lancaster University.
Quaife, P. (1999), Linkages Between Ecocentric Values and Action in Expert Discourse: The Case of Genetically Modified Food in the UK, PhD Thesis (forthcoming), Birmingham: The University of Aston in Birmingham.
Peter Quaife
E-mail: ZPQuaife@aol.com
