Caliber’s Food and Beverage Global Reputation Report Reveals Disconnect Between Consumer Priorities and Behavior Regarding ESG

Caliber, a stakeholder intelligence company helping brands build trust, released its Food & Beverage Global Reputation Report 2024, revealing a disconnect between consumer priorities and behavior, especially as it relates to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) topics. Though 50% of global respondents said they are very likely to stop buying products from a company if they learned it was causing environmental damage, only 17% cited sustainability as an important factor when choosing to buy a food or beverage product.

Additional highlights from this year’s report include:

• Both globally and in the U.S., respondents said that price, taste, and quality are the top three most important factors when choosing to buy a food or beverage product.
• The companies with the best reputation—as measured by Caliber’s Trust and Like Score—in the U.S. are Del Monte, Kraft Heinz, Nestlé, Chobani, and General Mills.
• When asked how likely they would be to stop buying products from a company if they learned it was causing environmental damage, 50% of global respondents said very likely, 39% said somewhat likely, and 11% said not at all likely.
  • In the U.S., 49% of respondents said very likely, 40% said somewhat likely, and 11% said not at all likely.
• When it comes to the most important issues for food and beverage producers to address, 46% of global respondents and 38% of U.S. respondents said reducing its environmental impact.
• Nestlé is one of the most trusted food and beverage brands with a global Trust and Like Score of 72 (77 in the U.S.), despite accusations of greenwashing and its products having been found in global cleanups.
• Globally, only 12% (U.S.: 13%) of people view food and beverage companies as part of the problem when it comes to their role in reducing packaging waste, while 46% (U.S.: 40%) see them as part of the solution and 42% (U.S.: 47%) view them as neither.

These contradictory sentiments towards sustainability come at a time when ESG investment, regulations, and even the language used to discuss ESG initiatives are in flux. As brands grapple with these opposing pressures, insights into consumer perceptions can help inform ESG strategies and communications. Overall, consumers’ emotional and rational perceptions towards food and beverage brands are at odds—the industry and popular brands have positive Trust and Like Scores compared to other sectors, but consumers expect brands to do more regarding ESG.

“There’s a clear disconnect between consumer emotions and behavior in the food and beverage sector, and that’s significant for brands to pay attention to as overall goodwill towards the food and beverage sector plateaus,” said Caliber CEO and Founder Shahar Silbershatz. “Large brands cannot take consumers’ emotional attachment to brands for granted, and must focus on long-term and large-scale initiatives that will build trust, including among the environmental and societal categories that consumers deem the sector’s responsibility.”

Caliber’s most recent sector report utilizes three sets of data from its continuous tracking and field surveys, which combined represent over 38,000 people in 28 countries. The company releases annual reputation reports across sectors including financial, energy, pharmaceuticals, and retail to help inform brands across these sectors on trends in consumer and stakeholder perceptions.

Caliber provides real-time insights on consumer and stakeholder perceptions of brand, industry, and financial optimism to help inform strategies and initiatives that build trust among consumers and key stakeholders. Caliber’s Trust and Like Score offers unique insights into perceptions of a brand’s reputation, values, and communications and can be compared to the over 1,000 companies that Caliber tracks daily. Caliber also releases annual reputation reports across sectors like financial, energy, pharmaceuticals, and retail to help inform brands on trends in consumer perceptions, trust, and expectations.

About Caliber

Caliber is a stakeholder intelligence company that provides businesses with actionable intelligence that helps them understand their audience, communicate more effectively, and build trust. Caliber created the world’s only real-time, customizable platform that tracks stakeholder perceptions. This empowers brands to harness the full potential of their reputation and fully embody and communicate their values. To learn more, visit http://www.groupcaliber.com.

About Caliber’s Trust and Like Score

The Trust and Like Score is a metric developed by Caliber that measures a company's public image and brand strength, which companies can use to understand and improve their communications and stakeholder relations. The Score is calculated by averaging responses to two sentences: "X Corp. is a company I like" and "X Corp. is a company I trust". The results are then compared to a normative scale to determine if the score is positive or negative.

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