Shoppers 'will pay more for Irish goods'

Shoppers are prepared to pay a premium price for quality Irish products, a survey has found.

New research found 58% will fork out extra for home-made or Irish goods, with eight out of 10 preferring branded products to supermarket’s own label items.

Glanbia Consumer Foods also revealed that quality is of far more importance to Irish consumers than price, with 86% stating quality is the most important factor in judging value for money.

Reinforcing the trend towards the purchase of Irish products is the emergence of food traceability, with 83% strongly agreeing they prefer to buy brands with Irish traceability labels.

The habits of 400 consumers were researched for the survey, carried out between February and April this year for Glanbia.

When grading the local convenience store, it found that good opening hours, a selection of products, and being locally owned were most important.

However, 72% of our most health-conscious shoppers indicated that healthy foods on-the-go is the one thing they would like to see move of in their local store.

“The Irish shopper in 2007 is someone who is focused on quality, is health conscious, and likes to buy local produced products,” said Glanbia’s Colin Gordo.

“They want to buy and value Irish brands and the responsibility for Irish food companies is not only to satisfy that expectation, but exceed it in terms of choice, innovation and quality that is guaranteed every time”.

Glanbia Consumer Foods delivers almost two million units of fresh food daily with a brand portfolio that features seven of Ireland’s top 100 brands.

It employs 800 people in 10 sites nationwide.