The meat and poultry industries have learned that if you poison your customers enough times, they’ll eventually start losing trust in you—although, oddly, they won’t change their purchasing habits. That’s the takeaway from a study carried out by Meatingplace.com (snicker) and “its sister publication POULTRY” (ha ha WHERE’S CHRIS HANSON). However, no description of the study is provided other than that Zoomerang.com was used, so we’re not sure if the results are at all meaningful. We’re just glad the meat industry is starting to notice something’s wrong.

Sadly, the real intent of the study was to measure how much of an impact “the media’s relentless coverage of recalls” have had on customer trust, and not on topics like, oh say, whether mixing batches of meat is a sound business decision.

Although the majority of consumers remain confident in the overall safety of the U.S. meat supply, 34 percent said they are less confident than they were five years ago.

Only 35 percent of consumers surveyed agree that the U.S. government is doing everything it can to ensure meat product safety.

36 percent of consumers said they worry about serving fresh ground beef or hamburgers to their families due to concerns about E. coli contamination. The majority, however, indicated that such concern has yet to impact purchase habits or even intent.

“Survey Suggests Fraying Consumer Confidence In Meat Safety “
(Photo: Getty)

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