A Profile of the Organic Produce Consumer

Abstract

Our paper explores the factors influencing the consumers who buy organic food. Analysis of these factors enabled us to sort the consumers into groups based on their gender, age, education, and other identifiers. Further research then revealed more detailed shopping preferences of each one of those groups. The findings generated recommendations for producers and organic produce vendors on the best way to provide target marketing for different groups of consumers and therefore increase their sales of organic produce and food made from organic produce. Considering the use of categorical data, contingency tables and correspondence maps served as the best representation and processing tools. Data analysis showed that organic produce is most frequently purchased by respondents in the age of 45+ years, who also tend to spend more money for this range of products. At the same time, these would be the respondents, who struggle the most when recognizing organic produce and who have often never seen any advertisement for it. The respondents aged 25 years and less tend to purchase organic produce least frequently; they also often do not care about the origin of organic produce. Almost the same applies to families with multiple children. However, young respondents often grow their own organic produce. There is still a not insignificant percentage of consumers, who consider organic produce to be expensive and who do not believe in their qualities. As it turns out, when it comes to organic produce the respondents purchase most frequently fruits and vegetables, milk and dairy products.

Consumer versus Organic Products in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Opportunities and Barriers to Market Development

“…Various studies have shown that health-conscious people are more likely to buy organic food. People who buy organic food for health reasons often claim that "Those products are healthier than conventional ones", and 34% of the respondents in one of the conducted surveys have stated that they wanted to avoid toxic, unhealthy substances in their food [71,72]. Similar results are presented in the study performed by Chakrabarti [73], Prada et al [74], according to which the respondents prefer organic products because of their better health value while compared to conventional food.…”

“…Researchers in the Czech Republic obtained similar results. [71]. To sum up, when it comes to the offer of organic products, Schäufele and Janssen [91] argue that organic production is reasonable in the case of goods that are available on a wide scale-when a lot of consumers are familiar with the products, otherwise a product remains a niche product, for a small group of customers [92,93], an example of such products sold in the Polish market during the pandemic could be organic goat milk and its derivatives.…”

Being a product consumer during the COVID-19 pandemic: profile of the Polish consumer in the organic dairy market

“…Note also that—as corroborated by surveys carried out in Poland—products derived from organic cow’s milk, such as cream, kephir and yogurt, have gained in popularity among organic food consumers. Czech researchers had similar findings (Zamkova et al. , 2018).…”

Customer Preferences for Organic Agriculture Produce in the Czech Republic: 2016 and 2019

“…Nevertheless, the research study also revealed the respondents' awareness of the qualities of organic food and stronger willingness to pay the premium price. This was confirmed by the research study by Zámková, Prokop and Stolín [25] who analysed factors influencing consumers who bought organic food and concluded that the price was no longer the single most important factor. In addition, the Slovak market is signalling the same shift, according to Kádeková et al [26], whose research paper suggested that the key factor for organic food purchase is its quality and the information that the food is pesticide-free; the price was found to be the next most important thing.…”

“…Von Meyer-Höfer, Nitzko and Spiller [31] came to the conclusion that, despite 20-odd years of strict regulations, consumers still do not seem to know what to expect from labelled organic food. Zámková and Prokop [32] addressed the issue of organic labelling recognition among consumers in the Czech Republic and came to similar conclusions; the authors' later research study [25], focused on the Czech and Slovak markets, also revealed rather strong scepticism about the benefits of organic food. Golob, Kos Koklic, Podnar and Zabkar [33] addressed the issue and, by using structural equation modelling, they tested the relationships between environmentally conscious purchase behaviour and green scepticism in organic food consumption.…”