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The purpose of this paper is to identify drivers and barriers for the demand of organic poultry to provide recommendations for market actors.

644 consumers were interviewed through computer-assisted self-interviews in four regions (north, south, east and west) of Germany in front of conventional supermarkets and organic food shops. The survey data were analysed differentiating between three consumer segments. In addition to descriptive analysis, an explorative factor analysis was conducted and a multinomial logit model was applied.

The results show that consumer preferences, attitudes and determinants of purchase decisions differ significantly between consumer groups. Price sensitivity, appreciation of animal-welfare, belief in altruistic benefits of organic poultry production, as well as the influence of media reports are important determinants for the purchase decision of different consumer segments.

This study provides information for market actors regarding which strategies to adopt to increase the sales potential of organic poultry indifferent consumer segments.

The organic poultry market has great potential as it can meet the growing demand for healthy and sustainable products which are produced in an animal-friendly way. However, its market share still lies far below the overall organic market share for food products in total. Reasons for the low market share were not explored in-depth until now.

Even though insect products increasingly receive attention as a sustainable food alternative to meat, consumer acceptance remains low. The purpose of this paper is to test consumer acceptance of two different insect species with varying degrees of processing which led to different degrees of insects’ visibility.

Insect dishes that varied according to species and degree of visibility were presented to participants of a self-administered personal survey within a meal context. Consumer acceptance was measured through the willingness-to-try the different dishes, and a hierarchical linear regression was applied to estimate the role of insect species.

Consumer acceptance can be improved by focusing on different forms of food processing and different insect species. The lower the visibility of insects, the higher the consumer acceptance, independent of insect species. However, this is not sufficient to overcome consumers’ widely held rejection. Main barriers for consumer acceptance seem to be low social and cultural acceptance, fear of trying unknown products and a lack of taste experience.

A huge body of literature has examined determinants of insect consumption, but the majority of these studies did not consider the effects of insect species. The study’s main objective is to close this research gap while checking the most relevant individual traits as identified through a literature review: food neophobia and familiarity, social and cultural norms, awareness of benefits of insect production, meat consumption and socio-demographics.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of attitudes and socio-demographics on wine consumers’ real purchase behaviour for organic wine.

This study is based on GfK household panel data, a real market data source of high population coverage. A two-part fractional model was applied as two distinct categories of wine buyers were observed. The first part of the two-part fractional model consisted of a standard binary choice model and defined the likelihood of belonging to the group of organic wine buyers. The second part of the model only took organic wine buyers into account and described their purchase intensity.

Preferences for organic products and sustainability concerns (e.g. environmental and social concerns) drive organic wine purchases. Proving a causal relation between attitudes and purchase behaviour gives evidence that stated preferences are a reliable indicator to predict consumer behaviour. However, the weak relation between attitudes and behaviour confirms the existence of an attitude-behaviour gap.

Quality benefits of organic wine production need to be communicated to attract new customers. Stronger focus should be put on sustainability issues with the aim of encouraging organic customers to also increase their expenditures for organic wine.

The influence of sustainability concerns on purchase behaviour is still controversial and no study, so far, has analysed real purchase data for organic wine. The results provide new insights on why attitudes do not fully transform into purchase behaviour.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse if German consumers are willing-to-pay a price premium for local food produced with local feed. The study provides insights into reasons explaining consumer preferences for animal products produced with local feed.

Computer self-assisted personal interviews (CASI) with 1,602 German consumers were conducted. To calculate the price premium for local feed, consumers were asked about their willingness-to-pay (WTP) for local feed. The respondents had to indicate their WTP for the local feed share levels 75, 90 and 100 per cent for pork cutlets, beef steaks, eggs and milk. To measure the impact of consumers’ attitudes and sociodemographic background on the WTP, a zero-inflated negative binomial regression model (ZINB) was calculated.

The study reveals that there is a high WTP for animal products produced with local feed. Furthermore, it delivers interesting insights into the WTP for different shares of local feed. Increasing WTPs for a 75, 90 and 100 per cent local feed origin could be found. The logit model in the zero-inflated regression showed that the buying frequency of organic foods exerted a particularly significant impact on one’s belonging to the group which has, in general, no additional WTP for locally produced feed.

Consumers’ perception of the supply chain of local products is virtually unexplored. This is one of the first papers that take this topic into account.

The purpose of this paper is to gain insights into organic consumers’ price sensitivity by investigating price knowledge, willingness-to-pay and real purchase decision.

Organic food consumers’ price knowledge, willingness-to-pay and real purchase decision were examined in a comprehensive field study with 642 respondents. An innovative method was used to collect data for products that were truly relevant to the respondents: before entering the shop, respondents were asked about the items on their shopping list, the prices they expected to find and the maximum prices they were willing to pay. If respondents stated a willingness-to-pay value below the actual store price, they were approached again after shopping to verify their purchase decision.

The great majority of respondents failed to estimate the correct store price. The deviation between the estimated price and the actual store price was on average 19.9 per cent. The respondents were willing to pay on average 52.7 per cent above store prices. It was revealed that in 67.0 per cent of the cases, respondents bought a product even though the store price was higher than the willingness-to-pay they stated upon entering the store.

Category-specific insights into price knowledge and willingness-to-pay of organic consumers might be used for price differentiation strategies.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate organic consumers’ item- and store-specific price knowledge, willingness-to-pay and real purchase decision in a single-source approach.

The sales volume of organic food products in Germany has been increasing consistently over recent years, yet only a small number of households is responsible for the majority of organic purchases. Even these so-called “regular” organic food buyers spend, on average, less than half of their budget on organic products. The present study aims to analyse the reasons why these consumers do not purchase particular products in organic quality, in order to uncover product gaps and purchase barriers.

The investigation is based on computer-aided, personal interviews among regular organic food buyers, which were conducted in retail and organic food stores across Germany. Altogether, 817 interviews were carried out. To minimize regional variation in the data-set, stores were selected from north, south, west and east Germany in equal proportions.

The most important reasons for not purchasing organic products among regular organic food consumers were price, insufficient availability, and the quality of the product. Since product-specific analysis was carried out in this study, the results indicate that the relevance of reasons varies from product to product and according to shop types.

To the authors' knowledge, no research to date has dealt with an analysis of product-specific purchase barriers in the context of regular organic food buyers. Furthermore, in contrast with other studies, a preceding analysis of panel data identifying product groups with the lowest organic market shares builds the basis for a well-grounded survey. The explorative character of the study results in unique findings on consumer purchase behaviour related to specific products in a variety of predefined product categories.

The purpose of this paper is to consider whether UK consumers recognise and trust organic certification logos and whether the presence of these logos on a product increases consumer willingness to pay for that product.

To ascertain the reaction of UK consumers to organic certification logos commonly used in the UK, this study makes use of three methods: focus groups, a consumer survey and a willingness to pay experiment (choice experiment).

These three approaches reveal that UK consumers associate certain benefits with organic foods but are generally unaware of how the industry is regulated. With regards to trust of the logo, the standards they think underlie the logo and the inspection system that they think is associated with the logo, UK consumers rate the Soil Association and Organic Farmers and Growers logos more highly than the EU logo or products labelled with just the word “organic”. They appear willing to pay a premium for the additional assurance that these two logos provide, suggesting that where they are recognised, certification logos are valued.

To the authors' knowledge, no previous studies exist on whether UK consumers recognise and trust different organic certification logos. These findings show that where such logos are recognised they can help to give some assurance to the UK consumer and this is reflected in a willingness to pay a premium for foods labelled with the Soil Association and Organic Farmers and Growers certification logos, as opposed to no logo or the (less well known) EU logo.

In July 2010, a mandatory European Union (EU) logo for organic food was introduced to strengthen the organic sector by making the identification of organic products easier for consumers. The present study aims to analyse how consumers in five EU countries view a mandatory EU logo for organic food and to give recommendations for agrarian decision makers and market actors in the organic sector.

The study is based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to provide a comprehensive picture of consumer views. Focus group discussions were conducted with consumers in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Italy and the UK. A subsequent survey with 2,042 participants was carried out to quantify consumer views on key issues and analyse country differences. Finally, the results of the qualitative and quantitative study were brought together.

While the introduction of a mandatory EU logo for organic food was generally welcomed in all countries, trust in the underlying production standards and the inspection system was not very pronounced (except in Italy). The authors conclude that the introduction of the new EU logo should be supported by communication campaigns to make clear what the new logo stands for and remove unfounded consumer concerns regarding the downscaling of standards and the trustworthiness of the inspection system.

To the authors' knowledge, no previous studies exist on consumer views on a mandatory EU logo for organic food. The recommendations drawn from their findings can help to reach the objectives connected with the introduction of the mandatory EU logo.

This paper aims to provide insight into why organic food consumption in families decreases when children become adolescent. Further, it seeks to derive practical implications for food marketing.

The results stem from two qualitative studies. In the first study the development of organic food consumption in families was investigated from a parents' perspective. In the second, juveniles' influence on organic food consumption in families was examined. In both studies data were collected by means of problem‐centred interviews. Data were analysed with Grounded Theory procedures according to Strauss and Corbin (1990) in the first study and with content analysis according to Mayring (2007) in the second.

Children's transition into adolescence often represents a causal condition for a reduction of organic food consumption in families due to juveniles' preferences for conventional food in product categories such as sweets, salty snacks or breakfast cereals. Concessions of parents to their children's preferences are based on strategies like being liberal, avoiding conflicts or letting children have their own experiences. Parents' strategies depend on their evaluation of conventional food.

Marketing for organic food should increasingly involve the demands of juveniles since they are considered to be an attractive target group.

No insights exist for the investigated phenomenon.

With the introduction of the mandatory European Union (EU) organic logo for all organic food products in 2010, the European Commission aimed at fostering the internal organic food market. This needs consumers’ knowledge of the logo. According to earlier research consumers’ knowledge of the EU organic logo is low. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to elicit consumers’ attitudes towards organic certification and labelling and to develop recommendations on how to improve consumers’ knowledge of the EU organic logo.

By means of an online survey with 3,000 participants in six European countries, knowledge of the logo and attitudes towards organic farming and European labelling, as well as organic food purchase behaviour and socio-demographic indicators were elicited. Factor and cluster analysis based on several statements on the test persons’ attitudes towards organic farming and corresponding EU legislation were conducted in order to segment consumers.

The results indicate that knowledge of the logo is low. Only about 15 per cent of all respondents knew its meaning. Four clusters of consumers could be identified: “Committed organics”, “Pragmatic organics”, “Organic sceptics” and Organic disinterested’. With reference to the EU organic legislation’s aim of promoting the organic market, particularly “Organic sceptics” should be addressed by emphasising the trustworthiness of the organic certification and labelling system.

Segmenting consumers according to their attitude towards organic farming, its labelling and certification allows for targeted and efficient communication and organic market development.