Increasing Demand for Pasture-Based Dairy: What Attributes and Images Do Consumers Want? - Re-Thinking Organic Food and Farming in a Changing World - page 126

Fig. 7.1 Potential marketing label images developed by a graphic artist. Images were shown to
participants in random order. For the first two focus groups, each image was shown twice (for a
total of ten images); once as represented here and once with the same image, but substituting a
brown cow. Due to a strong dislike of the brown cow images, only the images here were shown in
the last four focus groups

7.3 Results and Discussion

7.3.1 Demographics

A total of 55 people participated in the six focus groups (Table 7.2 ). From the
self-administered written survey, demographics of the participants indicated that
the majority of participants were Caucasian (87 %) and female (75 %), the average
age was 43 years, and the most frequent family gross income category for 2009 was
$20,000-$60,000. In addition, all participants had received at least a high school
education and 75 % had at least a college baccalaureate degree. Ethnicity, average
age, and percent female are all higher than Michigan population demographic
statistics which reports these averages as 80.2 % Caucasian, 35.5 years, and
51 % female, respectively. Education levels reported here are also higher than the
Michigan average of 83.4 % of the population earning high school degrees or higher
and only 21.8 % of the population holding bachelor degrees or higher. However,
incomes reported here are similar to the state median household income of $61,617
(U.S. Census Bureau 2010 ).