Exploring consumers’ perceptions of local food with two different qualitative techniques: Laddering and word association

Help the climate, change your diet: A cross-sectional study on how to involve consumers in a transition to a low-carbon society

“…The evaluation of the food-related options may be affected more by non-specific "green" beliefs, although this may differ between the local food option and the organic food option. It may be relatively easy for consumers to recognize the energy-related dimensions of the local food option, due to the visible aspect of less transportation (Roininen, Arvola, & Lähteenmäki, 2006). This does not apply to the organic food option.…”

Using Means-end Chain Analysis to Reveal Consumers’ Motivation for Buying Local Foods: An Exploratory Study

“…Although several research studies of local food have revealed meaningful choices, the underlying attributes, consequences and values, with respect to the MEC theory [for example : Lind (2007) and Roininen et al (2006)], differ considerably for Indonesian consumers, as they involve personally and socially different views and beliefs. Thus 'soft' laddering is employed in this study, since this method offers considerable consumer involvement and cognitive effort, in order to recall personally meaningful abstractions of the consumers.…”

“…This approach has frequently been applied to understand perceptions about, and why, consumers choose specific food products including beverages, different methods of farming (local and organic foods, and genetically modified products) and different kinds of foods (pork and vegetables) (Gutman 1984;Gengler et al 1999;Naspetti and Zanoli 2009;Hall and Lockshin 2000;Bredahl 1999;Grunert et al 2001;Makatouni 2002;Urala and Lähteenmäki 2003;Fotopoulos et al 2003;Baker et al 2004;Roininen et al 2006;Lind 2007;Krystallis et al 2008;Barrena and Sanchez 2010;Kirchhoff et al 2011;Arsil et al 2014b). MECs have also been identified as a useful method to reveal the drivers of consumers' food choices in the United States, many European countries including the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Spain, and in Australia (Gutman 1984;Gengler et al 1995;Bech-Larsen et al 1996;Fotopoulos et al 2003;Padel and Foster 2005;Bonne and Verbeke 2006;Roininen et al 2006;Grantham 2007;Lind 2007;Krystallis et al 2008;Barrena and Sanchez 2010;Kirchhoff et al 2011). This method is also used to compare the motivation for food choices between groups of consumers in different countries, and throughout many European countries (Grunert 1997;Bredahl 1999;Valette-Florence et al 2000;Grunert et al 2001;Baker et al 2004;…”

Irish Chefs and Restaurants in the Geography of “Local” Food Value Chains

“…Local food is associated with consumers seeking high quality which they may define in terms of nutritional value, freshness, clean production, animal welfare, an absence of additives, avoidance of the risk posed by particular animal diseases and of the energy costs and environmental impacts of transporting food over long distances [4,27,[39][40][41][42][43]. There is a concern with how nature is "used" rather than "abused" [44,45].…”