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Consumers embrace local food systems as an alternative to the global corporate model, and nearly 75% of consumers in the United States purchase organic foods occasionally. To assess consumers' knowledge of locally grown organic foods, surveys were administered at three metropolitan farmers' markets in Little Rock, Hot Springs, and Texarkana, Arkansas. Consumers with Bachelor's, Associate's, or technical degrees accounted for almost half of the people surveyed. Seventy-one percent believed organic foods were safer than conventional foods. Three times as many consumers were concerned about harmful bacteria in conventional foods than in organic. The number one reason for purchasing was to support local farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To answer the question, “How interested in buying organic foods are the majority of the current shoppers at our farmers' market?,” more than 300 consumers at three diverse farmers' market locations were surveyed for their organic food purchasing habits. Comparisons were made between purchasers who were new to purchasing organic foods and purchasers who had been buying organic foods for many years. Analysis showed that a majority of respondents (74%) were frequent purchasers of organic foods, buying once or twice a month and a significant percentage (44%) of those had been purchasing organic foods for 7 years or more. Opportunities exist to expand organic sales at these farmers' markets in Arkansas, where only 42% purchased most of their organic foods and 80% surveyed answered “yes” that they would buy more organic if its price was similar to that of conventional foods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Staphylococcus aureus can be carried on the skin and nasal passages of humans and animals as a commensal. A case of human methicillin-resistant S. aureus infection resulting from contact with pork has been reported. Poultry carcasses are sold at retail with the skin intact, but pork and beef typically are not. Thus, the risk of methicillin-resistant S. aureus human infection from whole raw poultry carcasses may be greater than that of exposure from pork or beef. The objective of this study was to isolate and characterize S. aureus from whole retail poultry carcasses and compare the isolates to S. aureus isolates from humans. A total of 25 S. aureus isolates were collected from 222 whole poultry carcasses. The isolates were characterized phenotypically with antibiotic resistance disc diffusion assays and genotypically using multilocus sequence typing. A total of 17 S. aureus isolates obtained from healthy humans were included and characterized in the same way as the poultry isolates. Staphylococcus spp. were recovered from all poultry carcasses. Only 25 poultry carcasses (11.2%) were contaminated with S. aureus. Of these 25 isolates, 36% were resistant to at least one of the antibiotics tested and 20% were resistant to two or more antibiotics tested. However, 100% of the human isolates were resistant to at least one of the antibiotics and 94% were resistant to two or more antibiotics. The results of the multilocus sequence typing indicate that most of the isolates grouped according to source. These results indicate a low prevalence of S. aureus present in poultry, and the isolates were not phenotypically similar to human isolates. The low number of S. aureus isolates from this study indicates that chicken carcasses would appear to not be a significant source of this bacterium.

Unlabelled: Because of the growing consumers' interest in organic meat, consumers' (N = 976) attitude toward organic meat was evaluated. Most respondents (59%) occasionally purchased organic chicken. To determine the organic chicken consumer profile, the organic chicken consumption frequencies of different demographic groups were compared. The results show dependence on age (P= 0.039) and ethnicity (P = 0.015). Older respondents as well as respondents who identified themselves as Caucasians tended to buy organic chicken more frequently. However, many other socio-demographic factors were not correlated with organic chicken consumption: gender (P = 0.185), education (P = 0.235), household income (0.867), living with partner or not (P = 0.235), and number of children (P = 0.883). Taste was identified as the most important meat quality attribute (perceived as [very] important by 94% of the respondents). Other important meat quality criteria were: general appearance, overall health, price, nutritional value, and containing no medical residues. "Organically produced" appeared to not be that important compared with other criteria. When respondents bought organic chicken more often, the importance of most of the meat quality attributes shifted to higher levels of importance, except for the price where an adverse effect was shown. The main motivation factors to buy organic chicken were the perception that organic chicken has fewer residues (pesticides, hormones, antibiotics), is safer, and healthier. The high price for organic meats was the strongest limiting factor for organic meat purchases followed by poor availability. Approximately 41% of the non-buyers and 30% of the occasional buyers perceived organic meat as not or hardly likely to be available in their supermarket., Practical Application: This study obtained a better knowledge of consumers' attitudes and perception of organic chicken as well as the effect of various demographics on the likelihood of buying organic chicken. For marketing purposes of organic meats, it helps to know which attributes consumers perceive as important, where the consumer purchases organic chicken, and what the perceived availability of organic chicken is. Additionally, the motivation and deterrent factors are described indicating why the consumer does or does not purchase organic chicken. This information can be valuable to help promoting organic meats to the consumers.