The limits of market research

Fascinating point made by the Guardian today - that the ostensible anti-fast food backlash of the past few years was driven by suppliers believing consumers who told their market researchers that they wanted to eat more fresh fruit and vegetables. "We listened to consumers who said they wanted to eat fresh fruit," said a Wendy's spokesman, "but apparently they lied." Not quite, I think - consumers were perfectly sincere when they said that they wanted to eat more fresh fruit. But the wanting never translated as any actual eating, so the fresh fruit sat around the burger joints uneaten. Such are the perils of basing supply-side decisions around what people say they want rather than what they actually do.