PPB October 2020

consumers feel more comfortable returning to some public spaces over others. The majority feel most comfortable returning to grocery stores (78 percent), parks (73 percent), home improvement stores (68 percent), government buildings (61 percent) and shopping malls (56 percent); but less than half said they feel the same about hotels (49 percent), theme parks (44 percent), gyms (38 percent), and arenas or stadiums (34 percent), or taking a bus, train or airplane (39 percent). Because consumers have been spending more time at home—61 percent said they are planning to cook at home more often compared to just 40 percent who are planning to dine out—they’ve also adapted their shopping habits to fit their new lifestyles, and 84 percent said they have been shopping online since the start of the pandemic. This surge in ecommerce touches on many industries, with more than half expecting to buy more food and groceries (62 percent), home goods (59 percent), clothes (55 percent), and books, music, movies and games (51 percent) online even after the pandemic, compared to last year. Despite the convenience offered by ecommerce, consumers still miss face-to-face interactions and experiences. Eighty-three percent said they miss being able to spend time with friends and family, while 79 percent miss “being able to touch and feel products,” 77 percent miss casually browsing at stores and 77 percent miss “hunting for a great deal.” And when consumers do go out now, they are more particular, planned and pragmatic about their approach compared to the pre-pandemic days. Forty-three percent are making shopping lists beforehand, 40 percent are researching products online, 36 percent are price- comparing products from multiple retailers, 36 percent are looking for items on sale, 30 percent are looking for coupons and 30 percent are looking at the retailer’s website or app. Most consumers also anticipate the changes brought forth by coronavirus to have a lasting positive effect, with 64 percent who believe that stores will “change for the better.” Some of the changes that consumers anticipate retailers to provide include hand-sanitizer stations at the door (63 percent), sanitizing wipes for shopping carts (50 percent) and enforcing a six-foot social distancing protocol for guests who are shopping or waiting in line (49 percent). TECH TALK Clear Water Consumers are asking to know more about where their food is coming from, and commercial seafood company Mowi is responding with a 100-percent transparency supply chain. In a time when consumers are calling for the brands they love to practice transparency more than ever before, Mowi ASA (formerly Marine Harvest ASA), the world’s largest provider of Atlantic salmon, boasts 100-percent transparency. The Norwegian company— which produces about 25 percent of the world’s farmed Atlantic salmon, according to Chief Operating Officer Ola Bratvoll—recently partnered with EVRYTHNG, a software company with locations in London, New York City and San Francisco, to implement a technology that allows end users to see “everything” about its supply chain. Each individual package of Mowi Pure product—the company’s premium brand—sold is assigned an Active Digital Identity™, or a QR code, which links the product to the EVRYTHNG Product Cloud™, an end-to-end platform that connects to more information about the product’s farm-to-table journey, including data about the sourcing, production and origin. To access this information, end users can simply scan the QR code using their phone’s camera, which will then redirect them to the Mowi app, available for download in Apple’s App Store or Android’s Google Play. The interface also permits end users to opt to receive related content, like recipes and coupons. And while benefiting end users by meeting their call for full transparency— particularly in an industry like aquaculture, which has countless documented cases of the excessive use of chemicals, hormones, pesticides and antibiotics in its farming and harvesting processes—the technology also benefits Mowi by providing the company with data on consumer behavior, allowing it to better target its marketing campaigns and boost sales. Mowi first unveiled its end-to-end technology in 2018, but Mowi Pure only became available to consumers in the U.S. via Amazon Fresh in March; it originally sold in Poland. Nonetheless, the move to include this technology reflects a direct awareness and response to consumers’ needs, and it’s a move that may have inspired smaller companies in the same space to follow suit. Fishpeople, for example, a Portland, Oregon-based seafood company, also offers full transparency using a similar system, allowing customers to scan products’ individual QR codes for a full story on each item. This is a major step in the right direction for consumers, as 93 percent reportedly believe it’s important for manufacturers to disclose information about the origin of the foodstuff they sell—according to “The Transparency Imperative: Product Labeling from the Consumer Perspective,” a 2018 study by the Food Manufacturers Institute and Label Insight—and 74 percent said they’d switch to a brand that provides more product information than what’s on the label, a jump from 39 percent who said the same in 2016. Danielle Renda is associate editor of PPB. Alexander Raths / Shutterstock.com 78 | OCTOBER 2020 | THINK