Institute For The Future

Product Information: What Do We Want to Know?

Recalls have made people more suspicious of food safety while a diabetes epidemic has led many to reconsider what kinds of food they eat. Increasing evidence that the industrial food system contributes to the global climate crisis causes others to look deeply into where food comes from. Americans want to know more about the food they purchase and consume every day, and new technology is making this possible. But as more information about our food becomes accessible, deciding what to buy and what to eat may become more difficult.

Before we buy an apple, what will we want to know? Will we care how much it costs? Will it matter where it was grown? Will we consider what it was grown next to? Which chemicals were sprayed on it, near it or in the irrigation system that was used water it? How much water was used? Who shipped the apple? How it was stored? Was the farmer paid a fair wage? Were his workers? How many calories does it contain?

Will we want to know everything?

California voters will decide this November if genetically modified food will be explicitly labeled. Designers are already envisioning sustainability-labels that will give consumers the entire history of the products that they purchase. Earlier this month, IBM launched a new augmented reality app that will allow users to learn everything they could ever want to know about their food simply by pointing their smart phone at the merchandise. Dean Takahashi at Venture Beat reports, “You’ll be able to see info such as ingredients, price, reviews, and discounts that apply that day. If you opt in, data from your social networks can be integrated into the data stream. If a friend reviewed a product that you’re looking at, the app will flag that review.”

The availability of such technology signals the increasing democratization of data that is occurring throughout the retail world. Websites like Real Time Farms and Market Maker allow individuals to track the source of food in new ways so they can make better informed decisions before they make their purchases. It is generally assumed that if the process is more transparent, then food producers will have an incentive to make safe, healthy food at reasonable prices.  But will this be the case?

Today’s grocery store products are filled with a variety of information consumers use to make decisions. Some of the information, like ingredient labels, is regulated in a way that leads to a certain degree of transparency. However, words like “Low-Calorie,” “Sustainable,” “Fresh,” and “All-Natural” do not have a standardized definition and shoppers find themselves relying on simple marketing schemes to help them choose their food. Detailed labeling and augmented reality apps can give consumers more knowledge about what they are buying, but it can also misdirect shoppers and lead them to purchase something that is not really in line with their ethics or nutritional plans.

Without contextual knowledge, it is difficult to determine whether a locally grown, pesticide-drenched fruit is “better” than the same organic fruit shipped from across the planet. If your augmented reality app told you that the workers in Ecuador who picked your fruit were paid the equivalent of $6 per hour for their harvest, would you be able to determine if that was a fair wage? Unless you had time to brush up on the current state of the economy in Ecuador and you knew a thing or two about the fruit industry, you probably would not be able to use that information to help you make a better decision.

Some studies have shown that consumers want less information, not more. As floods of product information begin overwhelming shoppers, making purchasing decisions simple could be the key. Look at how frequently yelp reviews are summed up with how many stars a restaurant receives while nutritional information is boiled down simple calorie counts. We don’t want to know everything about every purchase we make just because the information is available. The trick is finding a way to display comprehensive information in a comprehensible format.  

For the sake of transparency, more information is better. But as the information begins piling up, platforms that allow consumers to cypher through extraneous information and customize what they want to know will be the most useful. As individuals become better equipped to seek out products that are in line with their health regiments or their ethical practices, producers will need to find new ways to provide honest and open information to the public.

Producers will also be able to influence what consumers choose to value. Last month the United States Preventive Services Task Force discovered that small doses of calcium and vitamin D don’t help reduce the likelihood of bone fractures, yet products still promote their inclusion in their packaging and consumers still purchase those products because they think it is healthy.

Augmented reality apps create the potential for an immediate feedback loop. If apps collect data and inform the producers that individuals are concerned with a product’s carbon footprint, they can emphasize the energy saving aspects of their products. Whether consumers make decisions based on water usage, the inclusion of GMO material, or the wages paid to the laborers who grew it, producers will have to adapt to provide products that fall in line with the public’s evolving perception of safety, health and sustainability. Technology can provide consumers with endless streams of information, but the question remains: what do we want to know?