Primary Research: Questionnaire
To gain a more focused insight to the target audience and their lifestyle habits I conducted a small questionnaire which could be analysed and interpreted to generate ideas for appropriate physical resolutions to the brief as well as gaining a more personal qualitative insight into my target audience. I emailed Charles who re-drected me to the Farm shop manager who was more than accommodating with me going into the store to engage with customers. I acquired a fairly small but informative sample of 25 participants who were all friends and had no hesitations to helping with this research project. The questionnaire was a very small survey that consisted of qualitative and quantitive questions that would help me to gage the attitudes and lifestyles of the target audience. From this sample I could the average age of consumers was 46 suggesting they have worked into managerial promotions to a stage with a relatively large disposable income to live comfortably on.
My first question asked if the user grew any of their own food/herbs, this was intended to see if their sustainable lifestyle preferences are followed through at home. An initial practical concept I had developed was to create a grow your own guide encourage more people to grow their own food at home however finding that 64% of the survey already grow some form of their own produce found this would be inappropriate and irrelevant for the target audience. Expanding on this I asked for a brief overview of the types of produce they grow at home; the top responses for this were herbs (including Coriander, Mint and Rosemary) closely followed by Tomatoes.
This questioned seemed obvious due to the location where I conducted the questionnaire however I asked participants in the cafe section of the farm shop assuming some participants came just for coffee or lunch as opposed to shop for local produce. I found the feedback really positive as 88% of participants said they preferred buying local produce over mass produced goods. Expanding on this some of the most engaging and informative responses included;
'Tastes better and is traceable'
'You done just get what the supermarkets offer - Local has more choice'
'Better Quality than Supermarkets'
'Sustainability is implicit (provenance, miles, organic etc)'
Finally I asked a more qualitative question asking 'How do you feel people could be encouraged to buy more local produce and reduce food waste?' this question was to try and get participants to identify the current issues within the local produce community and suggest ways in which I could improve this throughout my practical resolution. Most of the responses came under three distinct categories;
Price - rivalling supermarket prices would encourage people to buy locally as there is a stigma that it is expensive and only for the middle/upper class
Promotion - Promoting not only the benefits of local produce but also where to buy it as accessibility was another issue brought up that people didn't know where to buy local produce from/
Education - Educating people on the benefits of local produce which would come as a result of better promotion especially in school teaching children from a young age.
Some of the most informative and engaging responses to this question included;
'Make the food easily avail be in local shops - the pop up farm shop is a great idea' (in regards to the general store Broughton Park)
'Keep open small businesses/support local rather than larger out of town retailers'
'More advertising of local markets and price etc'
'Competitive prive, no BOGOFFS'
This primary research was extremely beneficial to my research and will considerable inform me practical resolutions. Conducting the questionnaire in person within the store environment was much more valuable than an online survey even though I would have probably gotten more responses, engaging and interacting with the participants provided me with further inspiration based on their personalities and the way they talked about the issues raised within the questionnaire. This research better incomes my perception of the target audience and can be analysed and interpreted to ensure my practical resolutions are appropriate and informed.
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