Richard Bennett: Australia’s grocery buyers have voted food safety as their top factor likely to influence which supermarket retailer they shop at, but only by a very narrow margin. A 2014 survey by Roy Morgan Research of nearly 16,000 shoppers put food safety just ahead of proximity, value, trading hours, even price. The recently published report follows a similar result from Roy Morgan’s 2013 survey.

Last year’s survey also looked at shopping behavior of rural shoppers versus their urban cousins, revealing some quite significant differences. While food safety is the number one country shopper driver, ‘good quality fresh fruits and vegetables’ came in second (ninth for city grocery shoppers). Capital city shoppers are most interested in their retail option being close to home (tenth for country shoppers) followed by food safety and convenient trading hours.

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