At Faunalytics, we spend a good deal of time trying to understand consumer motivations. It might seem obvious to point out that the food people buy heavily influences what they actually eat. Advocates have long struggled to create campaigns that incorporate animal-related ethics into the mechanics of how people make their purchasing decisions. For many people, however, ethical differences between products are not the primary motivation. People have loyalty to particular brands or stores and may buy things spontaneously, without considering the implications of their purchases.

This study from the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) analyzed the opinions of thousands of grocery shoppers. Although the FMI’s mandate is to “support food retailers,” their data can also be useful for animal advocates. While this study was not specifically animal focused, it sought to do what the FMI study does every year – “to illuminate how evolving shopper attitudes and behaviors translate into larger scale shifts that affect super revenues and growth.” This year’s study focused on recent shifts in shopping behavior and what FMI calls a shift towards a “shared shopper paradigm.”

What does this paradigm shift mean? Essentially, the old paradigm “wherein one primary shopper was in charge of planning, directing and shopping for the entire household” is gone. In its place, more household members are sharing responsibilities. Buying groceries is part of an “ongoing negotiation” of responsibilities between people. The study examined one aspect relating to animal welfare that may be encouraging for advocates. Among other trends, shopper interest in animal welfare has been “consistently growing of late and appears to be picking up momentum.” The authors note that, since 2013, “the number of consumers who say it is important that their grocery store practice animal welfare has grown from 17% to 21%.”

Perhaps just as interesting, animal welfare has now overtaken certain environmental and “sustainability” issues that traditionally have been big market segments for retailers. With that history in mind, the authors suggest that retailers should start giving animal welfare a proportional amount of attention. For advocates, the study shows a modest but encouraging trend in attention to animal welfare from consumers. The growing “shared shopper paradigm” might also have advocacy implications. To help guide our advocacy, it’s useful to know that interest in animal welfare is growing and also to understand how households make their purchasing decisions.