Life course, diet-related identity and consumer choice of organic food in Taiwan

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to establish an understanding of choices of organic food in relation to life course by taking into account of age and two indicators of diet-related identity, vegetarianism and healthful attribute preference for agricultural produce. The stated variables tend to reveal how consumer attitudes and consumption of organic produces relate to life course factors across diet-related identities and age groups. Design/methodology/approach – This study takes adult consumers of Taichung City in Central Taiwan as the target population. A survey data by personal interviews collected through systematic sampling of four supermarkets and one farmer’s market was employed to obtain a sample of 322 adult consumers in February, 2010. Findings – This study finds that the level of individual vegetarianism is significantly correlated with organic food attitude. Individuals who live with young children and possess healthful preference for agricultural produce demonstrate more positive attitudes toward organic food. In addition, being in poor health or taking care of acutely or chronically ill family members, living with a spouse, in favor of vegetarianism, and approval of healthful attributes in choosing agricultural produce all contribute to an individual’s intake of organic food. Along with age, living with young children is found to have joint effects in influencing an individual’s choice of organic food. Research limitations/implications – Since the stages of life is interwoven with various factors such as age, marriage, child-raising and other life events and spans a long period of time, the authors suggest that a longitudinal study may be carried out in future studies to reveal more detailed and valid information. The formation of life course indicators should be more specified to include all possible stages or conditions. Mixture of qualitative analysis with quantitative analysis, will be a better approach to obtain more detailed and meaningful information. Future studies should apply more complicated designs to obtain further theoretical implications. Practical implications – First, taking the family rather than individuals as the marketing unit is a more effective strategy for organic food marketers, producers and policy makers. Second, more educational activities or training events in food preparation that simultaneously target both parents and children at the same time should be held. Third, extension agencies of organic agriculture and organizations affiliated with vegetarianism should seek to establish more bilateral educational or commercial cooperation in order to strengthen the development of organic agriculture. Originality/value – Previous studies have rarely explored the issue of organic food choice and life course and its possible moderating effects with diet-related identity. In this survey of Taiwanese consumers, there are sufficient evidences to confirm the connection between life course factors and the consumption of organic produces, either by the figures of main effects or interaction effects.

Influences of background factors on consumers’ purchase intention in China’s organic food market: Assessing moderating role of word-of-mouth (WOM)

“…Specific to social factors, the study findings supported that self-perceived vegetarian and environmental concern could significantly drive consumers' intention of purchasing organic food. In existing studies, self-perceived vegetarian used to be studied as socio-demographic information to identify diet habit or lifestyle of organic food consumers (Gracia Royo & de-Magistris, 2007;Stobbelaar et al, 2007;Tung et al, 2015). In the present study, however, self-perceived vegetarian was explored as a vital independent variable with purchase intention by quantitative research method, helping confirm that proposed relationship between self-perceived vegetarian and intention of purchasing organic food exactly existed.…”

Satisfaction and purchase intention of imported fresh fruits based on familiarity: a case of Korean pears in Taiwan

“…Although various food choice models reflect the complexity of understanding food choice behavior (Sobal et al , 2014; Pula et al , 2014; Ozimek and Żakowska-Biemans, 2011; Gindi et al , 2016; Tung et al , 2015), few studies have investigated the potential influences of familiarity, specifically those associated with imported foods. Nonetheless, imported fruit is likely to be popular in Taiwan, as the demand for fruit increases as consumers become more health conscious (Chen, 2011).…”

Do We Know Organic Food Consumers? The Personal and Social Determinants of Organic Food Consumption

“…Safety and positive influence on human health being major reasons for purchasing them (Zanoli and Naspetti, 2002;Fotopoulos et al, 2003;Lea and Worsley, 2005;Hughner et al, 2007). Various researchers have evaluated the personal and environmental factors influencing the purchase of organic foods, including human-animalenvironment centered values, and health-related variables (Hutchins and Greenhalgh, 1995;Nielsen et al, 1998;Lindeman and Väänänen, 2000;Squires et al, 2001;Harper and Makatouni, 2002;McEachern and Willock, 2004;Lea and Worsley, 2008;Hasselbach and Roosen, 2015;Tung et al, 2015).…”

“…Many studies on attitudes and the consumption of organic products show that health (McEachern and Willock, 2004;Padel, et al, 2005;Chen, 2007;Kulikovski and Agolli, 2010;Denver and Christensen, 2015;Tung et al, 2015;Hsu et al, 2016;Aschemann-Witzel et al, 2013;Mie et al, 2017;Oroian et al, 2017;Petljak et al, 2017;Singh and Verma, 2017), animal welfare (Lindeman and Väänänen, 2000;de Boer et al, 2007;Lu et al, 2010;Hasselbach and Roosen, 2015;Escobar-López et al, 2017) environmental consciousness and attitudes (Thøgersen and Zhou, 2012;Irianto, 2015;Nedra et al, 2015;Lee, 2016 ), taste (Millock et al, 2004;Aertsens et al, 2009;Suh, et al, 2012;Lee and Goudeau, 2014), environmental concern (Salleh et al, 2010;Anburaj, 2015;Fernandes et al, 2012;Nedra et al, 2015;Petrescu and Petrescu-Mag, 2015;Uma and Selvam, 2017;Sharma and Singhvi, 2018), and ecological motives and attitudes towards organic food (Honkanen et al, 2006) affect attitudes and intention of purchasing organic products (Van Loo et al, 2010;Basha et al, 2015;Teng and Wang, 2015;Lee and Yun, 2015;<...>…”