The Organic Food Market: Opportunities and Challenges - Organic Food and Agriculture: New Trends and Developments in the Social Sciences - page 74

justify as organic still has a long way to go, especially for regular and emergent OF
consumers: “ You need to educate before going with new ideas and you need to better develop
consumers' knowledge in organic before” . Respondents from specialty stores as well as
supermarkets agree that this “sustainability” aspect of the product is not targeting every
consumer that wants to eat healthy and is still learning about organic. Some respondents
consider that sustainability can constitute a competitive advantage if the targeted consumers
are the ones already caring for these characteristics, in other words hardcore consumers that
highly value the environment. Specialty stores representatives highlight the importance of
the origin of the product more than the general concept of sustainability: “ where it comes from
is more important ”… ” having local products and knowing the origin is the most important thing for
organic ”. Skepticism is what emerges from the interviews as (1) most respondents highlight
that it will bring confusion because consumers will get too much information on top of all
what is related to organic, and (2) it is not sure as how much it will add to organic and how
organic will be defined within these new attributes and claims. Indeed, when confronted
with too much information, there is a risk of information overload and potential adverse
effects because of consumer misunderstanding.
8. Demand side analysis: Quantitative study
8.1 General profile of organic food consumers
Our sample is composed of 324 consumers. In a first step, consumers are classified as follow:
if respondents buy organic at most once a month then they are classified as non-regular
organic food consumers (non-RC) while if they consume organic food very often then they
are tagged as regular organic food consumers (RC). This is a basic grouping method
(Cunningham, 2001). Accordingly, respondents are distributed as follow: 62% of RC and
38% of non-RC. Further, the typical profile of our respondents is: female (69.7%); aged 25 to
35 years old (49.1%); single (34%) or married (37.7%); household composed of 2 to 3 persons
(47.8%); have at least an undergraduate degree (69.9%); works as a professional (26.9%) or is
white collar (22.8%); buys at least 2 organic food products (90.8%); eats mainly organic fruits
and/or organic vegetables (24.1%); buys organic food mainly from supermarkets (31.2%);
spends on average $100 in organic groceries (58.4%); considers nutritional value, freshness,
healthiness, and taste as the major factors for buying organic food product; and finally is
happy with his/her organic consumption experience (90.8%). Cross-tabulations with Chi-
square testing were used to explore the relationships between the main different indicators.
Results show that age as well as monthly spending, satisfaction, and OF product category
are good predictors of the type of consumer. 35% of non-RC spend at most $100 in OF
groceries while only 25.1% of RC spend the same amount. Further, 31.4% of RC have a
monthly spending in OF groceries of $100 to $400. This is explained in part by the type of
Product Category Non-RC RC
Dairy 8.3% 41.9%
Fruit 27% 59.7%
Bread 11.1% 46%
Meat 7% 27.9%
Vegetables 28.3% 57.5%
Prepared food 8.6% 36.5%
Table 2. Purchase Distribution for RC and non-RC per Food Category