The Builderscrap.com team are back from the Christmas break. This next post states that respondents were quite likely to already be buying fresh food that had been grown when it is in season in the country where it was produced – 60% had done this and were maintaining the behaviour while a further 3% had tried this but had relapsed. Very few respondents (6%) had rejected the idea of buying locally in season produce but one in five (21%) were at the pre-contemplation stage indicating that they “hadn’t thought about doing this” or “hadn’t heard” about it.

The omnibus survey included some additional questions about seasonal food. Firstly, omnibus respondents were presented with a fuller definition of what seasonal food was before being asked whether they ever purchased it:
‘Seasonal food is defined as food that is grown outdoors or produced during the natural growing / production period for the country or region where it is produced. It need not necessarily be consumed locally. As a result less energy is likely to have been used in its production’

Providing this fuller definition led to responses that were broadly similar to the response already presented in Table 22. Just over half (55%) said they were already buying seasonal food and maintaining this as a behaviour, 9% said they were contemplating it, 6% had thought about it but had rejected the idea, and 19% were at the pre-contemplation stage (having either never thought about it or having never heard of it). A comparison of responses to these two questions is provided in Table 23.

All respondents in the omnibus survey were also asked what factors might encourage them to buy more seasonal produce. More than one third (37%) of respondents said that they would buy more “if the price was similar to the food they usually bought / if it was cheaper”. A smaller proportion (14%) said that they would if shops made it clearer which food was seasonal, 9% if packaging on food told them it was seasonal and 6% if shops only sold seasonal produce. Just over one in ten (11%) said that nothing would make them buy more seasonal food because they wanted to buy the food they desired whenever they wanted.