What we value

Grocery shopping: healthy or cheap?

When buying food, many Austrians primarily look at the price.

(Bild: stock.adobe.com)

Fresh organic food from the region that also takes animal welfare into account is what Austrians want on their plates. However, according to the report "Food Consumption in Austria", actual purchasing behavior is quite different. We prefer to buy cheap goods in the supermarket. 

Austrians eat and drink around one and a half tons of food per year. With this quantity, it is important to pay attention to quality in order to keep the body healthy. Fresh food should be preferred to processed products.

Processed products instead of fresh 
Unfortunately, however, many people are increasingly eating convenience foods. These often contain a lot of sugar, fat and salt. The proportion of overweight people in this country is rising dramatically. Meat is also high on the popularity scale. 

Quality instead of quantity
For the sake of our health and the environment, we should pay attention to quality and not just price when buying food. "In many respects, our purchasing behavior does not match what we as a society want from food production," explained Maria Fanninger, founder of the "Land schafft Leben" association, at a press conference in Vienna. "Especially when it comes to meat, we often have very high expectations of production, but then buy the cheapest."

In an AMA survey, 48% of respondents stated that animal welfare was important to them. However, very few of them actually buy the corresponding food. "In the case of pork, for example, the proportion of organic and animal welfare products is only seven percent," emphasized Hannes Royer, co-founder of the 'Land schafft Leben' association.

Production depends on purchasing behavior
Austrians are often unaware of how much power we have with our purchasing behavior: "For years, prime cuts such as pork medallions had to be imported in large quantities because demand was so high. Currently, on the other hand, some of the prime cuts from Austrian pigs are even minced because there is no demand for them. This shows what influence our purchasing behavior has on food production," reported Hannes Royer.