Scale of consumer loyalty for organic food

Abstract

Purpose – The alternative food markets are growing and despite the evidences of heterogeneity and of organic food consumers’ special features, little has been done to develop a scale to measure loyalty to this market. The purpose of this paper is to propose and validate a scale based on consumers’ loyalty literature and on the particular features of the organic market. Design/methodology/approach – Data from 604 consumers were obtained through a web-based survey, which was used to analyze the structural equation in the AMOS software, in order to validate the proposed scale model. Findings – A one-dimensional validated scale consisting of eight questions and showing high composite reliability level (0.95) was used to measure consumer loyalty to organic food. The herein used sample presented mean True Organic Loyal (4.36) and standard deviation (0.62); these values depict Brazilians high loyalty to this food type. Research limitations/implications – The research was conducted and validated in Brazil and it can be replicated within the country as well as be transculturally validated. Originality/value – The main contribution of the current study is the development and validation of a scale named scale of consumer loyalty for organic food. The suggested interpretation ranges from non-loyal to true organic loyal consumers and it helps understanding organic food consumers’ behavior. This research took under consideration consumers of any sort of organic food as well as consumers of regular food markets (farmer’s markets, supermarkets, collective groups, shops and internet).

Influences on the intention to buy organic food in an emerging market

“…The most common level of education was the higher education (29 per cent), followed by post-graduate (28 per cent) and master's degree (23 per cent). The characteristics of this second sample were clearly similar to those of the first sample, suggesting that the consumers of organic food in Brazil can be characterised as adults, mostly female, and with higher education (Dias et al, 2016). The samples appear to represent the typical consumer of organic food in Brazil.…”

“…Such a negative relationship makes sense in emerging markets, where the openness to change may be connected to the consumption of food from developed markets, such as fast foods and industrialised foods, leading to a reduction in the consumption of organic foods. Openness to change in emerging markets often refers to purchasing habits of developed countries (Dias et al, 2016). Accordingly, in contrast, we suggested that:…”

“…In addition, the country suffers with logistical problems, like transportation and storage (Thøgersen et al, 2015). On the other hand, organic food is gaining space in Brazil among a small group, consumers with greater financial capacity and better education (Dias et al, 2016), once this target audience of the survey (consumers of organic food) is not easy to access at random, we decided to collect data in two diverse ways.…”

“…Studies of organic farming and the organic market show the concerns of people with the types of farming and its effect on the environment (e.g. Dias et al, 2016). These are, among other things, features that form the universality often found in previous studies as an identified value between the consumer and organic food.…”

“…Considering that the results previously found are not consensual, we opt to rely on the vast majority of previous studies regarding universalism and buying organic food, since that supposedly, people with personal values linked to self-transcendence would tend to consume organic foods, especially in emerging markets, where the effects on the natural environment are increasingly present in their daily lives (Dias et al, 2016). The following hypotheses were proposed for this study:…”