Determinants of Purchasing Behaviour for Organic and Integrated Fruits and Vegetables: The Case of the Post Socialist Economy - Organic Food and Agriculture: New Trends and Developments in the Social Sciences - page 35

“sacrifice” superior visual attractiveness for the organic and integrated category, but the
taste should be better. This might be a useful guideline for business development strategies.
Relation between environmental concern and organic or integrated fruit and vegetable is
significant but rather inconclusive. Marginal effect are positive for non buyers, whereas for
frequent buyers are negative. These results are accordant with conclusion about low
association between environment and organic and integrated production. Insignificant
relation has been evaluated for meal preparation patterns, however they are rather
explanatory. Probability of being frequent buyer of organic or integrated fruit and vegetable
increases with the fact that a respondent is only sporadically cooks meals at home.
Traditional eating patterns are not a characteristic of aware and affluent consumers. They do
increase the share of food consumed away from home and are also disposed to modern food
categories where organic and integrated produce surely can be classified.
The contribution adds towards a better understanding of demand for organic and integrated
fruit and vegetable in emerging markets. Despite this, additional research would be needed
to understand sufficiently such a complex processes as food choice. In this respect, it would
be interesting to study in greater detail consumers' attitudes by different distribution
channels and strategies for organic and integrated fruit and vegetables. This would help to
prioritise specific attributes and to evaluate price sensitivity of consumers for organic and
integrated produce.
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