In order to compare other changes which come with reducing the number of trips to the
supermarket or to the town market we asked the respondents to estimate the distance they
usually need to travel between home and the outlet where they purchase food. We computed
their answers into averages and found that the longest distance they need to make is the one to
the ASAT distribution point. This leads us to conclude that the consumers are making a bigger
effort to source their food from ASAT than from any other outlet available, signalling the level
of commitment to incur extra costs of time and money to be part of the partnership. An element to
help build the profile of the consumers is the means of transportation to the outlet. From the
data related to income of the ASAT consumers we derive that a large majority from them have
an income much higher than the region’s average. This finding is apparently consistent with
the high percentages of personal car use for food shopping. It seems, however, that the most
environmentally-friendly scenario out of the three (shopping from a supermarket, shopping
from the town market or being an ASAT member) is to shop from the town market (Figure 11),
because most of our respondents (45.2 %) walk there, and use their personal car the least.
Given the much larger distance to the ASAT distribution point we would have expected more
personal car use, but the consumers are using the bicycle (Figure 10), public transportation
and taxis more than for shopping in the supermarket instead (Table 20). We could interpret
this finding as a more environmentally-aware attitude which for some of the consumers came
along with the quality of being an ASAT member.