Quick-Serves Ranked Among Most Socially Responsible
A friend who's a vegetarian recently emailed me about Burger King's move to improve animal welfare. "This sort of move," she wrote, "would prompt me to choose BK over other fast food joints for road trip fare..."
Increasingly, parents and families are paying attention to corporate social responsibility and letting those impressions shape their spending decisions. Is your family among them? If so, you're certainly not alone.
Technomic, Inc., a respected restaurant consulting and research company, recently studied which restaurant companies consumers think are most socially responsible. And guess what? Four of the top five companies consumers named are quick-serves.
The chains consumers view as being most socially responsible are McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Subway, Starbucks, and Applebee’s. (Well, okay, Starbucks might send me a nastygram for lumping them into quick service. But they are competing with quick-serves in many areas. So, Starbucks, no nastygrams, please. Oh, and I love your M&M snickerdoodles.)
Looking at U.S. consumer attitudes toward corporate social responsibility in foodservice, Technomic found that restaurant users rated health insurance coverage, living wages, and animal welfare as their top three concerns, when asked to select among fourteen different issues.
Technomic found that, in general, consumers believe restaurant chains could do more to address their high priority social issues.
“Corporate social responsibility is becoming increasingly important for consumers in general and restaurant users specifically,” said Bob Goldin, executive vice president of Technomic, when the report was released. “The foodservice industry should identify and proactively address those social issues most important to their customer base. There is big payback for companies that are able to connect with consumers in this way and major downside risk for those fail to do so.” (Emphasis mine.)
Do you talk with your kids about how companies can give back to society? Does your family tend to shop or eat with companies you think are more socially responsible? Comment and tell us about it. The corporations are reading. :)
