Our Research

How we build trust and transparency.

CFI helps members build and protect trust by exceeding consumer expectations in a complex and often misunderstood food system.

Building trust isn’t just giving consumers more science, more research or more information.

It’s about demonstrating leadership and shared values on topics they care about most, such as food safety, quality and nutrition, outstanding animal care and environmental stewardship.

What builds consumer trust?

In partnership with Iowa State University and published in the Journal of Rural Sociology, CFI was the first to build a research-based consumer trust model.
Our peer-reviewed and published model for building trust in today’s food system shows that shared values are the key to building trust.

Our research shows that shared values are 3-5 times more important to building trust than facts or science alone.

Why does trust matter?

In today’s environment where consumers are crowdsourcing knowledge and rallying movements around their values and social preferences, trust has become the most valuable intangible assets of any organization. Consumers and other stakeholders simply want to know that you’re doing the right things for the right reasons.

With trust comes social license, the privilege of operating with minimal formalized restrictions – regulation, legislation and litigation. It provides the freedom to operate that allows the food industry to thrive.

CFI’s Latest Trust Research

CFI Transparency Model: Seven Elements of Trust-Building

Our CFI research proves that transparency is a key driver of trust. The question many organizations struggle with today is how to measure transparency in a way that informs and drives the strategy that builds trust.

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CFI has developed a research-based Transparency Assessment that allows food industry organizations to benchmark and track stakeholders’ perceptions of transparency. The assessment provides the insight needed to evaluate current levels of transparency and to guide strategies to enhance stakeholder trust by increasing transparency.

The Transparency Assessment measures an organization’s performance against the seven validated principles of transparency, as outlined in CFI’s Transparency Model.

Each principle is supported by discreet data points that identify the specific elements of transparency most relevant to your stakeholders and their perception of organizational commitment and performance in trust-building transparency.

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Focusing on the Foundations of Transparency

Our proprietary research finds there are four key areas where consumers seek transparency.

Sustainability

An organization’s global footprint goes beyond ethics to include all areas of environmental stewardship, social Impact and responsible governance.

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Health & Wellbeing

Transparency in health encompasses not only physical wellbeing but the affect food has on our mental health.

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Innovation

Building trust means sharing information on the innovations used across the food supply chain, from pre-farm technology to our dinner plates.

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Food Security

Food security means finding the balance between food deserts and food waste by creating a reliable, consistent supply while accounting for supply chain or socio-political issues.

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CFI Resources

Building trust in tomorrow means understanding today.

We help our clients identify and understand the industry innovations, shifting preferences and rising trends that shape consumer trust in food.

Consumer Trust Insights Council

Our Consumer Trust Insights Council gives members direct access to food system thought leaders, academics and social scientists exploring data-based insights on food industry and emerging consumer trends.

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Illuminate™ Insights

Our cultural insights help you understand the underlying motivations of your most influential consumers and stay ahead of critical topics through comprehensive, data-based research and exclusive members-only analysis.

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Engage™ Training

Tailored. Interactive. Empowering. Our Engage™ training programs – offered virtually and in-person – approach conversations in a whole new way to build trust with today’s consumers.

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Trending Articles

Sharing the insights that build transparency.

Lost Trust: Salvaging the food system’s intangible asset

Trust is every organization’s most valuable intangible asset. Consider that between 1995 and 2015, the share of intangible asset market value increased from 68 percent.

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Beyond the Label: Trust in Technology Requires Diverse Engagement

There’s only so much space on a food label. With ESG pressures increasing, there’s angst in board rooms as executives mull over how to communicate key attributes to earn trust with consumers who have …

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Tackling the Food Industry and Farmer Disconnect

The food and agriculture industries often talk about the disconnect between food production and consumers, however, the food industry and farmer disconnect is just as real…

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