Agriculture is poised to respond to these new demands - creating new opportunities for producers, processors, and consumers. Agricultural systems in place today are not customer driven, but cost driven. The marketplace defends this cheap food paradigm by saying that the customer is unwilling to spend more for healthier products. But, these new ingredients will cost more than the low priced commodities they will replace. Numerous studies have shown that consumers are eager to spend more for products that more closely meet their needs.
Consumers pay for quality in clothes they wear, cars they drive, and the computers they buy.
They purchase health club memberships to improve their condition and health. The technologies are available to improve our feed and food ingredients and to produce and deliver these improvements through today's commodity systems. We can offer consumers new choices for flavor, variety, convenience, nutrition and health in foods they eat. By improving the nutritional quality of food, we can improve the quality of life for the consumers we in business depend on.