Consumers name California drought as top food story of '14

The Great Western Drought topped all food-related stories for American consumers in 2014. According to the Hunter Public Relations' 12th annual Food News Study, conducted in partnership with Libran Research & Consulting, the shrinking bee population and the war on sugar were also top of mind for consumers.

The Hunter Public Relations 2014 Food News Study reveals the following:

Top 2014 News Stories - Overall Awareness 
1. The Great Western U.S. Drought 
2. Bee Population Shrinking 
3. The War on Sugar 
4. New Food Labeling Standards 
5. GMOs 

Top 2014 News Stories - Behavior Changes
1. The War on Sugar
2. New Food Labeling Standards
3. GMOs
4. Soda Calorie Cutback
5. The Great Western U.S. Drought

According to a news release, there have only been two environmental food stories ranked among the top five since the study first started in 2003, including Hurricane Katrina's devastation in 2005 and the Midwest drought of 2012.

In 2014, Americans reported a higher level of behavioral change overall based on food news stories than in 2013. For example, one-quarter of all polled said that the stories detailing the War on Sugar directly impacted their behavior. Of note, Americans with children in the household ranked the stories that related to their family directly and where immediate and measurable change was possible highest -- such as checking food labels more often, eating less sugar and paying more attention to where their food comes from.

Also in 2014, social media continued to gain steam and was the primary tool for millennials accessing food news. Gen X-ers, Boomers and Matures all favor more traditional media sources (TV, radio, newspapers and magazines), where broader, less food-centric stories -- like the top two in this year's study -- tend to be covered. But with millennials, who get their general food news from Facebook more than any other source (30 percent) and are self-curating their social media content, pop cultural and cause-related news stories dominated:

• Coke's "Name" Campaign
• GMOs 
• Pumpkin Spice Mania.

While websites, TV, magazines and newspapers continue to rank as the top sources of food-related content, social media continues its upward influence trajectory and is making serious inroads into the dissemination of food information, according to the report. Significant increases were seen in where Americans source food recipes (up 7 percent from 2013) and nutrition information (up 8 percent). Other trends revealed by the 2014 Hunter PR Food News Study include:

Americans are more likely than last year (21 percent, up from 17 percent in 2013) to consider purchasing a product or trying a recipe they saw on Facebook. Gen X-ers, followed closely by Millennials are the most likely groups.

As more and more Americans access social and online content via their mobile devices, so too do they increase their mobile food tasking, with marked increases in recipe searches (up 10 percent), storing shopping lists (up 7 percent) and watching video recipe demos (up 7 percent).

Millennials "out-mobile" their counterparts by significant margins, relying on their mobile devices for a range of food-related activities: searching for recipes (46 percent), checking nutrition information while shopping (25 percent) and watching videos for cooking directions (27 percent).

Instagram continues its popularity with more people than ever sharing their amateur food photography, with nearly a quarter of all millennials participating in this activity.