Diner Demographics: Going Green Coast to Coast

The green movement is national but finds its strongest proponents in the West and Northeast.

By Scott Hume, Editor-in-Chief -- Restaurants & Institutions, 12/1/2007

San Francisco is to organic foods what Seattle is to coffee: the epicenter of consumer interest.

To be fair, Seattle isn’t far behind San Francisco in its love for organics, either. A recent study conducted by New York City-based Scarborough Research finds that the West Coast has the most organic-foods users, with the Bay Area—San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose, Calif.—at the top of the list with 35% of residents polled saying they have purchased organic food products during the past month. Seattle/Tacoma is second at 32%; Portland, Ore., is next at 27%.

Research from Rochester, N.Y.-based pollster Harris Interactive similarly finds that the greatest number of organics aficionados live in the West; 10% of adult residents questioned there say they go organic all or most of the time. In the South and Midwest, 7% are similarly committed to organics; only 5% in the East fall into that category, Harris Interactive finds.

Among foodservice operators, early adapters were most numerous in the West, according to R&I’s 2004 Organic Food Study. That research found that 66.7% of operations in the West purchased at least some organically grown food, compared with 53.5% in the Northeast, 47.3% in the Midwest and 45.9% in the South.

The Green West Coast

Not just organic foods but many other elements of the environmental-responsibility movement continue to find their greatest support among consumers in Western states. Although a majority of consumers in all regions say they understand the term "green," according to R&I’s 2007 Tastes of America Study, the largest percentages of respondents who equate green with organics, with recycling/composting and with energy conservation are in the West.

However, consumers in the Northeast are most likely to say that living a green lifestyle is important to them. And although consumers in the West are most likely to say they base purchase decisions on how green a product or manufacturer is, consumers in the Northeast are slightly more likely to say that green considerations determine their restaurant choice.

Consumers in the West and Northeast show the strongest conviction when it comes to paying for eco-friendly products. Approximately one-quarter of Tastes of America Study respondents in those regions say they strongly agree that they will pay more for green products. And four in 10 consumers in the West agree that they expect to purchase more and become reliant on green products in the next 12 months.

Webcast: Listen to R&I's "Getting Green" Webcast and learn how other operators are working to make their businesses environmentally friendly.