A MAJOR market research survey is being conducted by the Manx government to assess the importance of locally produced food.
Questionnaires are being sent out to a randomly selected sample of households on the Island so that the results will give a clear picture of peoples’ views about local food. The results will be made available to farmers and others in the local food industry later on in the year.
The survey is being carried out by an independent researcher and repeats one carried out in 2008, enabling the Department to detect trends and changes in views over the last few years.
The questionnaire asks about a family’s weekly spend on food shopping, where the food is bought (e.g. Marks and Spencer, the Co-op or Shoprite etc) and how important are factors such as convenience, quality, ready-made meals, organic produce, food miles and price.
However, the majority of the questions concentrate on how often a family buys locally produced food such as meat, fish, seafood, cheese, bread, beer, eggs, ice cream, milk and vegetables. The survey also asks the three main reasons why you would buy local produce and goes on to rate the quality and value for money of the Manx produce, - from “very good” to “very poor”.
The survey further asks a series of questions about the importance of organic and non-organic produce and how it is rated by local families.
Possibly the most important question of all asks: ‘What, if anything, would encourage you to buy more local Manx produce?’
DEFA Minister John Shimmin said, “I hope that as many people as possible will complete this questionnaire or do so on line as it is important for us to understand your views and opinions about the local food market.
“The economic climate has changed since 2008 and we want to know if this has had an impact on your views. The first survey also produced some very definite responses on some topics, for example labelling of Manx produce, so we need to know if this is still the case. We will use the information to develop our programmes of work in support of local food production”.
The questionnaire can be found on line at http://www.gov.im/daff/welcome.aspx
The closing date for postal and on line responses is 26th August 2010.
