Laura Stortz: 00:01 Nutrition education, a lot of people don't know what they should be consuming, like what you said. Also, there's a lot of ambiguity about the nutritional contents of different foods. So if you're looking at crackers, for example, it's not necessarily very obvious which crackers are better for you or worse for you. So one of the ways that this warning label is supposed to work is... But there's been some research to show that it may reduce the basically significance of nutrition knowledge and numeracy skills. Josh Moran: 00:32 You're listening to the Why & How podcast, produced by the Ontario Agricultural College and the University of Guelph, where we look to answer the big questions in agriculture, food and the environment through casual conversation rooted in research. Josh Moran: 00:48 Hello everyone. I'm Josh Moran and today we are joined by a friend of the show, Jordan Terpstra. Thanks for being on Jordan. Jordan Terpstra: 00:53 Hey Josh, thanks for having me. So what are we doing today? Who are we talking with? Josh Moran: 00:57 I'm very excited. Today we are actually joined by Laura Stortz, so thank you for being on. Laura Stortz: 01:02 Thank you. Josh Moran: 01:03 Could you maybe tell us a little bit about what we're going to be talking about here today? Laura Stortz: 01:07 Yeah. I'm in my first year of my masters and so my thesis topic is something that's been in the news lately, which is mandatory front of package labeling. Front of package labeling is basically a nutrition warning label that the current government has proposed. It's basically meant to help let Canadians know what the nutritional quality of their food is without having to look at the back of package nutrition warning label. Josh Moran: 01:33 So something that's a little more eye-popping in terms of- Laura Stortz: 01:35 Yeah. Yeah. Jordan Terpstra: 01:37 Just to do a little bit more background as well, so you are a grad student in what department? Laura Stortz: 01:41 I'm from the Department of Food, Agriculture and Resource Economics. I also did my undergrad in the department and I just loved it so much I didn't want to leave. Josh Moran: 01:52 Could you maybe describe these nutrition warning labels? What are on these labels? Laura Stortz: 01:57 Yeah, so there's basically three core elements to the label. First they're going to be in black and white to minimize the amount of burden on food processors that are putting the labels on their packages. They'll denote whether a product is high in sugar, sodium, or saturated fat. Laura Stortz: 02:16 High end basically means 15% or more of your daily value of each of those different nutrients. So they'll basically have whatever label corresponds to 15% or more of the value of that nutrient. Josh Moran: 02:31 So this isn't something you typically see on like a whole food, this would probably be more so on the process side of things, yes? Laura Stortz: 02:39 Yeah. It'll basically be for most prepackaged and processed foods. So if you're in a grocery store and you're looking more in the center of a grocery store... You know those aisles with your cereals, your pasta, cookies, crackers, all of those kinds of products. Josh Moran: 02:55 The late night goodies. Laura Stortz: 02:56 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Josh Moran: 02:59 Why is the government so interested in actually having these labels? What implications would they have? Laura Stortz: 03:06 Yeah. Currently obesity costs the Canadian taxpayer about $6.6 billion annually. And then associated costs of obesity, due to chronic conditions and diseases, costs $26.6 billion annually. So, it really is a big deal. Laura Stortz: 03:26 Research has shown that Canadians and, globally, most consumers don't look at the back of package labels. So that black and white label is typically... consumers don't even notice it. So there has been some research to show that front of package labels command more attention and consumers are more likely to look at them. Laura Stortz: 03:47 Chile, actually in 2016, had put in effect these labels and they have seen some preliminary results for some food products. So that's why the government is looking into putting these labels on. Josh Moran: 03:59 Now, that's super interesting. I think that it's kind of neat too, right? Because even with those numbers, I think a lot of people don't even know what their daily recommended amounts are going to be for things like sodium and sugar and so on and so forth. So do you think that maybe some of this packaging will help raise consumer awareness? Is that the idea as well? Laura Stortz: 04:19 Yeah, and I think one of the main obstacles is nutrition education. A lot of people don't know what they should be consuming, like what you said. Also, there's a lot of ambiguity about the nutritional content of different foods. So if you're looking at crackers, for example, it's not necessarily very obvious which crackers are better for you or worse for you. Laura Stortz: 04:43 So one of the ways that this kind of warning label is supposed to work is that, it'll basically... There's been some research to show that it may reduce the significance of nutrition knowledge and numeracy skills. Laura Stortz: 04:59 So when you're looking at that back of package, it'll give you percentages and grams of different nutrients, but it's really hard to do that kind of mental math when you're in a grocery store, probably in a rush, have kids with you. You're just looking for the fastest thing and then you're going to get going. Laura Stortz: 05:16 So basically, our study wants to see whether these labels do what they're intended to do before it's put on the packages. Because it's quite a big national program, so our lab wants to see whether it has an effect. Josh Moran: 05:31 Test it before- Laura Stortz: 05:33 Before. Yeah. Josh Moran: 05:34 Before you chuck a lot of money at it. Yeah, that makes sense. Laura Stortz: 05:34 Yeah, exactly. Josh Moran: 05:36 Yeah. Now, are you working with various designs in terms of the way that it's laid out and seeing the effectiveness on a design basis? Laura Stortz: 05:46 We'll basically have a control group and then a treatment group with one label. Health Canada proposed four different labels. And then they had a stakeholder consultation document meeting. And they basically said that the label had to be in black and white. So then that left us with three different labels. Laura Stortz: 06:04 Luckily, there has been some previous research to show which labels are likely to be more effective. So we only have to test the one, which means we can get more significance. Josh Moran: 06:14 Could we have a picture of that for the show notes maybe? Maybe we'll include that there. Laura Stortz: 06:17 Yeah, of course. Josh Moran: 06:18 Awesome. That sounds great. You said you're working with these groups of people, these control groups. What would a control group look like? So you can get an accurate representation of an entire demographic. Laura Stortz: 06:30 Yeah. Basically for the control group, that's where they'll be walking through the grocery store without any nutrition labels. That's where we can see whether the treatment, which is the label, has an effect. Laura Stortz: 06:42 So basically our sample size will be coming from the Guelph area. We're going to be basically targeting groups that live in low income neighborhoods, and have been flagged as lower education as well, to get a greater representation in our sample, because that's basically the groups that are most at risk for being obese. So, we're going to be seeing whether those groups react to the label and basically compare the treatment to the control group. Josh Moran: 07:11 Very interesting. So you're trying to represent all demographics pretty evenly, just to get an idea as to what the average Canadian consumer and how they will behave, yeah? Laura Stortz: 07:18 Yeah. That's really important in the research design, is to make sure that you're getting enough people from the Guelph neighborhood that's representative in age, income, education, immigrant status, and all kinds of different indicators. Laura Stortz: 07:34 So we'll have a survey at the end to make sure that we basically have enough people in our sample to be able to make generalizable recommendations, but also balancing the needs of making sure that we can see whether people that are most likely to be obese respond to the labels. Josh Moran: 07:51 Right on. What kind of indicator would you say is probably has the biggest impact, in terms of people? Would it be education that would play the biggest role in terms of someone seeing something a certain way, or would it be income? Which one do you think plays the biggest role? Laura Stortz: 08:07 Socioeconomic variables are definitely the most important. When looking at the literature they're shown to be the most significant variables. The research has shown that the effects for socioeconomic status are stronger for women. So lower education and lower income correspond to greater levels of obesity. Laura Stortz: 08:25 Whereas for men there is a weaker relationship. So it could be that lower income and lower education lead to greater levels of obesity for men, but there's also instances where higher education and higher levels of income lead to greater levels of obesity. Josh Moran: 08:44 That sounds like an interesting distribution. I was wondering now, so you're getting these people going through, and this is, I guess, some sort of quantitative data that you're taking in when people are looking at these labels. I'm curious how you're actually marking as to where their attention actually lies. Laura Stortz: 09:00 Yeah. We use Tobii eye tracking glasses, which basically allow us to see everything that the consumer looks at throughout the grocery lab. Laura Stortz: 09:08 The grocery lab is set up like a typical Canadian grocery store. So you walk in and you'll have your packaged food in the center, and then we also have a dairy section. So we'll be able to see... Okay, when consumers walk in, do they look straight for price? Do they look at the brand? Do they look at the front end package label for the treatment group or are they looking for an organic label? Laura Stortz: 09:33 So we get to see, basically, the order in which everyone looks at the different aspects of a label and then also the intensity. When they're looking at price... I know, as a student, I look straight at price. So you'd be able to see a heat map basically where you're able to see, "Okay, they focused on price. They looked at the numbers, looked back. Looked back at the price, looked at the package, looked back and then looked at another product's price, and then looked back." So you can see basically everything that gives kind of a good indication of their cognitive processing of the shopping experience. Josh Moran: 10:11 Very interesting. Very high tech. I like it. Laura Stortz: 10:12 Yeah. Josh Moran: 10:13 I'm wondering too, now if... You said, "As a student, I can relate to this." You look at price mainly, right? Laura Stortz: 10:21 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Josh Moran: 10:22 Would it be arguable that these lower prices are often associated with these more unhealthy foods? Laura Stortz: 10:27 Yeah. Research has shown that more calorie dense foods tend to be cheaper and the prices of fresh fruits and vegetables and "healthy foods" tend to be increasing over time, but the research is really mixed. Because if you think about during the summer months, when fresh fruits and vegetables are more plentiful, then prices might be a little bit lower. But it also depends on where you shop. Laura Stortz: 10:53 I've also been seeing research about the typical food baskets costs across grocery stores in Guelph and it really differs. But typically, in the literature, more calorie dense packaged foods tend to be cheaper than fresh fruits and vegetables. Josh Moran: 11:09 So you see a lot of variability from store to store for the same items? Laura Stortz: 11:13 Yes. Josh Moran: 11:13 Wow, really? Laura Stortz: 11:14 Yeah. That isn't research that I did, but it's actually from the University of Guelph as well. So I'm taking that into consideration when we do the pricing aspect in the grocery store. Laura Stortz: 11:24 My plan is to do an average of a low cost and high cost grocery store, so that the prices reflected in the store are, I guess, a little bit tempered by the area. Laura Stortz: 11:35 Another aspect of it is convenience. So if you're working more than one job, it's really hard to go home and cook a balanced meal on a lower income and then also go over to another job after that. Josh Moran: 11:50 I know the feeling. When I'm not doing my main job, I'm also milking cows. And to find that in between spot, I have to meal prep, otherwise I'm just going to be eating junk food all week. So yeah, no, it's totally relatable. Laura Stortz: 12:02 And the grocery landscape has really changed over time, in response to different indicators in the labor force: longer hours, single income households, but also a lot of dual income households. So the grocery landscape has really changed a lot since the advent of the traditional grocery store. And a lot of people do their grocery shopping at convenience stores because they don't have a regular grocery store in their area. Josh Moran: 12:30 It's good that you can take in all these considerations and get a generalization that's going to fit as many Canadians as possible. So it's great work. Jordan Terpstra: 12:38 But then it also brings up the... It's a lot more complicated than people think. Right? You think, "Oh, it's just people grocery shopping," but there's so many other factors that come into play, which is very interesting. Even some of the things I haven't even thought of, like the black ink for example, to make it cheaper. That's something I never thought of because color would probably pop out more, right? So that's a very interesting issue that you have to think about as well. Laura Stortz: 13:02 Another aspect with the colors though, some countries have done multiple traffic light systems, which basically have different colors with different indicators of healthfulness, but those also have their own complications because consumers typically find them very confusing. Laura Stortz: 13:17 So there's been a lot of research. It's taken a lot of time to read through everything and look at what other countries have done, what Canada wants to do while also... The food processors also need to make money and being able to balance all of those interests. Josh Moran: 13:35 The variability is cool too, when you talk about people. You could be two individuals that are in the exact same situation in terms of your education, your socioeconomic situation, and so on and so forth, and you could be completely different health-wise. People are so different. It's not so black and white. It's cool to think that you can take all these things and put out a generalization that's going to work for most people. So I like that. That's very good. Laura Stortz: 14:00 Yeah. That's what I'm most excited about. I mean, food is such a personal thing. That's why I love studying at Canada's food university. There's just so much that goes into those little decisions that people make. Something minute as, "okay, I buy whole grain crackers because I just like the way that they crunch," versus let's say they have diabetes, they would be limiting their sugar intake. And so they would look at a front of package warning label that says high in sugar and avoid that product. All of those different aspects come into play. Laura Stortz: 14:35 I think one of the main reasons why I wanted to work in the food lab is because you get to see how people shop, which is something... If you're looking in a grocery store, just watching the people around you, you can kind of see how they shop. But being able to see where their eyes move you're able to see a lot deeper into that process. Josh Moran: 14:54 People really do look for that stuff. I look for the little blue cow. You look for those little things that are going to fit you and what your values are. There's so much more to food and what people choose to eat. It's super duper cool. Laura Stortz: 15:06 Yeah, exactly. We will have dairy in our food lab, so that'll be another side thing that we can look at. Do people look at the blue cow? Or when they're looking at dairy products, do they look at the calories? There's so many different things that you can do with that. Jordan Terpstra: 15:26 I'm curious about the way you conduct research. So I'm envisioning this food lab, which sounds really cool, and the technology you're using, but I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of the people that you're researching. Jordan Terpstra: 15:37 Even when I shop by myself, I might be more inclined to buy a chocolate bar because no one's there to judge me or I might buy those cookies or whatever. So do you find it a little bit difficult with your research that because people know they're being watched, that they might be a little more critical and are actually looking at those labels more? Can you comment on that at all? Laura Stortz: 15:54 Yeah, that's something I'm really concerned about, because you obviously want to make your experiment the best it can be. So a lot of the literature has said, after a couple minutes of people wearing the eye tracking glasses, they really don't even realize that they're wearing them. Laura Stortz: 16:11 And then we're also taking steps to get rid of that hypothetical bias, by actually making a different aspect to the food lab this time, where consumers will go home with one of their products that they buy. So hopefully people buy things that they will actually consume, because we'll basically have a randomized lottery system of all of the products in their basket and they'll go home with one of them. They won't know which one, so everything that they buy should be something that they'd actually be willing to consume. Laura Stortz: 16:42 As well, we'll take away the price of that item from the amount of money that they get for participating. That's one of the ways that we got rid of the hypothetical bias. Jordan Terpstra: 16:52 Yeah, that's actually a really cool thing. Josh Moran: 16:53 That's very smart, yeah. Jordan Terpstra: 16:56 Again, putting myself in the shoes, I'm not going to buy these products that... If I know I can get free food out of it, I don't want to pretend purchase or throw in an item that I'm not going to buy. That's really cool. Josh Moran: 17:07 Yeah. And I think that if you weren't implementing that, you'd go in and maybe buy things that are going to make me look like I'm a super health freak or something like that, right? It doesn't necessarily match your normal diet cause you're so keen on looking a certain way. That's a really, really smart way of going about things. I like that. Cool. Jordan Terpstra: 17:25 Are there any behaviors that surprise you that you see from, from consumers when it comes to looking at a... Laura Stortz: 17:31 I haven't as I haven't actually done the experiment yet. Something that I find really interesting in the literature is that basically responses to the front of package labeling differ across products. So if you think about it, and a lot of the times I do this when I'm reading the literature, I'll read something surprising and say, "who would do that?" But then if you think about how you shop, a lot of the times people are looking, let's say at ice cream, they'll see a health warning label and they might be like, "Oh this isn't very good for me, but I'm sure it'll taste really good because it isn't good for me." Whereas for products that are more ambiguous or ambiguous about the healthfulness like granola or cereal, people will shift towards a healthier product in that category. So I think that that part will be really interesting. I think like humans are just so interesting and how they shop, like looking at a positive nutrition label or a negative nutrition label and thinking about how it'll impact the tastes of the product is something like I hadn't thought of until I read the literature and thought, "Oh yeah, of course." Jordan Terpstra: 18:41 Well, and even if you think about it, like you mentioned the ice cream, it's like if I want to have ice cream I'm going to go for anyways, right? So health isn't what I'm thinking of. It is those kind of grayer areas. I'm calling them grayer, but even like a pasta. You know you're going to have a sauce on it so it's going to taste good. So it's like would I choose the whole wheat versus the... You know what I mean? That's interesting. Josh Moran: 19:02 I wonder this too, say a consumer assumes that one of the products that they're buying is healthy, even though that may not necessarily be the case, and there is a front of warning labeling on the package. Do you think that the consumer would maybe be less apt to pay attention to that label just due to the assumed health value? Laura Stortz: 19:22 Yeah, so something that hasn't been looked at in the literature, but I would like to look at is: do people cancel out the warning label if there's another label like product of dairy farmers of Canada or organic, because there's an intrinsic value sometimes that people place on organic products, which maybe isn't true, that they're healthier. So one of the things I'd like to look at is if there are other labels on the front of package that people look at, does that cancel out the effects of the front of package warning label? Jordan Terpstra: 19:58 You're kind of battling against marketing a bit because... And we all know that definitely a lot of these products are trying to compete with each other and trying to come across as healthy and they might say "doesn't contain this," even though that product would never contain that, right? So it's interesting to see if that has those cancellations. Josh Moran: 20:14 Like gluten free orange juice. I've seen that a few times. Laura Stortz: 20:17 Yeah, I was going to bring up the gluten free water, non-GMO water, and I do have a background in Agra marketing. So part of the reason why I like this product so much is because I got to study the marketing aspect as well when I'm doing the eye tracking. So I think like marketing is super cool but it's also really interesting to think about it from the health side. And positive nutrition labeling has been on products for a long time because industry wants to that kind of label where it says high in fiber or low in sodium or low in fat. And we did see, as a result of low in fat labeling, the literature has shown that suppliers are more apt to reformulate when they have an incentive to have low in fat products. So there's the hope, at least, that Health Canada has that this kind of labeling would incentivize producers to create more healthy options. Josh Moran: 21:17 And it's weird too, because I find that some of those things really work and catch people, but other things don't. You know what I mean? You could have something that says low and fat and people would say, "that makes sense." Or you could read something that says low in sugar and it might not necessarily have that same ring. Laura Stortz: 21:32 Oh yeah, for sure. And I think that there's also the risk for fatigue in the marketplace. So there's so many labels and it could be that there is a saturation of labels where consumers don't even register the rest of the labels. In a previous thesis project that came out of the food lab it was shown that there might be a health halo, which basically means that the more labels that people see, even if it's not a positive label, they assume that the product is better because they just see so many labels. Josh Moran: 22:04 That's interesting. Very interesting. You think that your research could really help shape this policy? Laura Stortz: 22:10 Yeah, I think that I have the opportunity to find out the results or the potential results of a policy before it comes into effect, which I find really important because in Ag econ you read so many papers and policies that talk about the unintended consequences of a policy. And I think that's my job as a researcher no matter the result to be able to help make policy better. So I'd really like to see whether this policy has an effect or it doesn't, and then be able to have some intuition as to why it worked or didn't work. Josh Moran: 22:50 Very interesting. And you have like your sort of quantitative marker when you talk about the eye tracking and finding out where people are looking, that's something that's measurable. Do you have anything that surveys something that's more on the qualitative thought sides of things for refer researching? Laura Stortz: 23:03 Yeah. That takes a long time to get ethics approval because I'm working with people from the community. So I had to submit all of my questions for the survey, my research design to the ethics board. And so my survey basically has three different components. So first is socioeconomic factors, which is income, and education, employment, all kinds of different indicators. Like "are you a recent immigrant?" Because some research has shown that up until 10 years of being in Canada, you have lower risk of obesity and then after 10 years, your obesity level is the same as a Canadian that was born here. Josh Moran: 23:50 Adapting [crosstalk 00:23:53]. Laura Stortz: 23:51 Yeah. Yeah. Which is really interesting because it does say something about the environment in the grocery stores. Some other questions that I ask are food security status, nutrition knowledge. So I use basically an indicator and it's almost like a test. Laura Stortz: 24:10 So if consumers are looking at a label, can they tell how much of a product corresponds to the nutrition facts and what their daily value is? So I also have some objective questions on there. I also ask the numeracy questions, so how comfortable a consumer feels looking at statistics versus something in words. So basically I test a lot of different indicators. I even ask their weight and height so that I can get an indicator of the obesity levels amongst my sample. I've really tried to think about every possible question while also at the same time not making my participants feel like they're taking an exam. Josh Moran: 24:59 Cool. And on the topic of socioeconomic issues and people's income, you're actually involved in another project that I find really really interesting. Could you maybe tell us what that project is? Laura Stortz: 25:14 Yeah, so when I started my masters I took a food security class and I've been involved with an organization called The Seed here in Guelph, and I actually do a lot of my grocery shopping there. And it basically aims to increase access to fresh fruits and vegetables. So I was trying to think of a way that I could help an organization that I really believe in. But then I ended up finding some really interesting economic results. So The Seed basically operates on a sliding scale pricing strategy where on the lower end of the scale is the lowest price that they can sustainably offer. And on the higher end of the scale it's comparable to the prices you pay in a typical grocery store. Josh Moran: 25:56 The consumer decides what they pay? Laura Stortz: 25:58 Exactly. So you self-select where you want to pay between those bounds. So you shop normally and it's basically set up like a market comparable to a farmer's market where they have fresh produce, in the winter time it's imported, or when they can, also local. But in the summertime it's mostly local. And you basically shop normally, pick whatever you'd like and then when you get to the cash they'll say, "okay, you can pay between $18 and $27." And then you self select, "okay, I'm going to pay $25 today," or "I'm going to pay $27" or if you're not having a great week, "okay I'm going to pay $18." Josh Moran: 26:42 What's maximum range you see in between these prices? Is it substantial? Laura Stortz: 26:47 Oh, it varies for everything. So the aggregate is for every product that you see, but for example, a lime would maybe be between 25 cents and 60 cents. So it really varies across all the different food products. And it really gives consumers the power to self select where they want to pay. And so everyone in economics, most of my friends are in Ag economics, basically would say, "well of course I would maximize my utility and pay the lower bound. Of course I'm a rational consumer." Josh Moran: 27:22 Yeah, pay the least. That makes sense. Laura Stortz: 27:22 Yeah. Yeah. And so I really thought about this question a lot and their whole goal is to increase access to fresh fruits and vegetables. And so I've been going to The Seed for a long time and I've just been really interested in the organization. So I reached out to them and I actually got their transaction data. So I was able to see all of the lower bounds and the upper bounds for a year of transactions. And then I also got access to the amount that the consumer decided to pay. And basically I found that there is a bi-modal distribution, so there's a spike at the lower bound, which is totally what you would expect. Josh Moran: 28:00 So that's people that are paying the least, right? That's what you mean by lower bound. And upper bound is the highest amount, correct? Laura Stortz: 28:04 Yeah, exactly. And I normalize all of the data so that I can see where people are within the bounds, not just the monetary amount. So I find a spike at the lower bound. And then I also find a spike at the upper bound. Which is contrary to economic intuition, because you would say, "well of course I would maximize my utility and pay the least so that I'd have enough money left over for other things." But I found the contrary. So that really gave me some deep questions about what do people get utility from and how do consumers react to being given power in the price system. So I thought that was a really interesting economic result. And I recently just presented that at the American Agricultural Economics Association and I got a lot of interesting questions because people were really surprised by that result. Josh Moran: 28:56 And what do you mean by "get utility from?" Laura Stortz: 28:58 Yeah, so utility is one of those funny economic concepts where it's like basically how much happiness or value do you get from something? So when you're shopping, basically everything you buy will give you some sort of value or happiness. And you're always trying to maximize that against your different constraints. Whether that's your budget, your time, in the context of food allergies, all kinds of different things. So you're constantly trying to just get the most out of things against all of these different constraints that you face in daily life. Josh Moran: 29:35 Sounds like a recent episode we did where people were spending more on craft beer because it was the idea that was a local product. Laura Stortz: 29:42 Exactly. And that's, that's one of the ways that the food market, I think, excels in knowing their customer base. So they're increasing access to fresh fruits and vegetables by marketing towards people in the community that don't traditionally have access to those things. Especially in the north end of Guelph where there's a food desert. And so they market towards those people, but then also have wonderful fresh, local, sometimes organic food that draws attention from people in the higher education, higher income, just people that really enjoy local food and are willing to pay more for those things. Josh Moran: 30:19 And what do you mean by food desert? I'm just curious. Laura Stortz: 30:23 Basically in the north end of Guelph there's basically not enough grocery stores for the area. And there's a neighborhood in Guelph which doesn't have any grocery stores, which is Brant. And there has been some research, which I mentioned, through the University of Guelph that basically mapped out the prices and the locations of all the grocery stores and it's also been in the news. So The Seed decided to fill a gap in the marketplace and open at fresh fruits and vegetable community food market there in the north end to basically increase access. Josh Moran: 31:00 And I'm just going to take a step back here for a second. When you said bimodal, that means that there's a dip in the middle as well, so people aren't actually paying that middle price. It's typically on the high end of the low end only, correct? Laura Stortz: 31:10 Basically a bimodal distribution is that there's people at the low end and that's the highest proportion at the low end and then it will kind of drop and then there'll also be a spike at the upper end. So it's almost like a valley between the two peaks. Jordan Terpstra: 31:28 And so when we're talking about this, what it actually reminds me of is when you go grocery shopping or, quite often at the LCBO even, when they say, "would you like to donate to such and such?" And I feel like I'm so inconsistent when I choose to donate. Sometimes I will do donate $5 sometimes I say "no," sometimes I do $2. So it reminds me of that kind of idea. Some days I'm sure like... I'm having a bad day or maybe payday hasn't come around in a while so I'm going to pay the lowest. But then maybe you're in a good mood or whatever and then you are paying more. So that's a very interesting concept. Laura Stortz: 32:01 Yeah. And I think that it has a lot to do with the structure of the community food market that people actually are, or at least seem to be, self-selecting where they fit between the lower bound and the upper bound in that they're basically subsidizing the price for people at the lower end. So there is that whole altruism side of it and people must be getting utility again from the other aspects of the food market in being able to shop there. Josh Moran: 32:30 And with The Seed, where has this project spread to so far? Laura Stortz: 32:35 Right now it's just in Guelph and they have about five markets. So they have one that's their main market downtown and then they have one in the West end, North end, I believe they have one in the South end and then they sometimes in the summer will expand to another market. Josh Moran: 32:56 Even from store to store do you still see this bimodal distribution across the board pretty well? Laura Stortz: 33:01 Yeah, I do, yeah. I section it off by store. By season I do find some variability. So during the winter time the average payment goes down a little, which may be due to seasonal unemployment or lack of local vegetables during the winter. It could be any of those things. All of my transactions are anonymous, so I don't actually know why. So the best I can do is do a little speculation or take an educated guess. Josh Moran: 33:33 Would you actually be interested in sort of pursuing a survey and getting more definitive results with this project? Laura Stortz: 33:41 Yeah, I would love to. I already have my thesis project, which is the front of package labeling. I'd love to do some sort of exit survey. But right now I'm focusing on my thesis. But I might apply for some funding perhaps to do another project. Josh Moran: 33:58 Very good. Jordan Terpstra: 33:59 So with the actual Seed project, what sort of implication does a system like this have on food security? Laura Stortz: 34:05 So I think it gives consumers that wouldn't normally have access to higher value fresh fruits and vegetables to be able to eat a healthier diet and have access to those fresh fruits and vegetables at a price that they can actually afford. Josh Moran: 34:20 Seeing the effectiveness of this is super duper interesting. And it's cool because it's going to pave the way for Canadian policy and the steps we take to ensure that we have a healthier population in the future. It's really great work and it's been a pleasure talking. But before we finish off, I'd like to ask you a few more questions if that's okay with you. Laura Stortz: 34:37 Sure. Josh Moran: 34:38 What advice would you have for someone that may be interested in sort of this economics side of food? What advice would you give? Laura Stortz: 34:47 One of the things that I'm really lucky to have had is have mentors along the way. So being able to, for example, when I joined the Canadian Agricultural Marketing Association, being able to find leaders in the industry to be able to ask questions and be able to chat with them. And then also having a group of peers that I really like to spend time with, but also learn a lot from. Also, I've been lucky in our department in FARE to be able to have a lot of professors that have an open door policy, but also try to create opportunities for students. So I would say just read as much as you can, but also try to make connections with people in the industry and come to Guelph. Josh Moran: 35:33 Yes, of course. That last one is important. And the last question we'd like to ask you is if you have any people you'd like to shout out? Laura Stortz: 35:40 Well, a big thank you to my advisers, Dr. Yu Na Lee and Michael von Massowand and John Cranfield, but also all of my friends in the FARE department we're like a big family. All of those late nights doing economic problems wouldn't be as fun without having them there. Also, my really good friend Elsie who I met on my first day and undergrad of FARE, we're all the way in our masters together. And also the Longos food lab, so thank you to Longos for providing us with this amazing high quality lab and the Ontario Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Rural Affairs for the funding to be able to do my project. Josh Moran: 36:24 That's great. And before we go now, is there anywhere that people can follow your work or stay up to date? Laura Stortz: 36:32 Yeah, well I should probably update my UFG profile, but I'm hopefully going to be doing some blog posts either through the FARE department or through the OAC. Josh Moran: 36:46 Great. We'll link some of that stuff in the show notes. Thanks again for coming on. It's been an absolutely fantastic conversation. Super duper interesting. Makes you think of things that you didn't even know you were doing when you're in the grocery store. Jordan Terpstra: 36:59 Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much for joining us. I don't know about you, Josh, but I'm hungry now. Josh Moran: 37:03 I hope we can have a snack after this. Jordan Terpstra: 37:05 Yeah. Laura Stortz: 37:07 I read about obesity all day, but it mostly just means that I read about food and then I get hungry. Jordan Terpstra: 37:12 Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Laura Stortz: 37:14 Thank you very much. Josh Moran: 37:15 Till next time. Josh Moran: 37:18 The Why and How podcast is published by the Ontario Agricultural College of the University of Guelph and is produced by Stephanie Craig and Jordan Terpstra. recording and editing done by Jacob Hyzyk and Kyle Richie. The host is me, Josh Moran.