The Organic Food Market: Opportunities and Challenges - Organic Food and Agriculture: New Trends and Developments in the Social Sciences - page 77

Trust Dimensions Channel users Mean t-test

Significance

Direct
Channel

Prior Experiences Users 3.102 0.014*

Non-users 3.314

Organic labels
trust

Users 2.682 0.048*

Non-users 2.866

Brand and Store Users 3.590 0.081

Non-users 3.446

Local Market Prior Experiences Users 3.270 0.522

Non-users 3.218

Organic labels
trust

Users 2.850 0.439

Non-users 2.783

Brand and Store Users 3.462 0.381

Non-users 3.532

Organic Food
Stores

Prior Experiences Users 3.354 0.001*

Non-users 3.072

Organic labels
trust

Users 2.707 0.001*

Non-users 2.987

Brand and Store Users 3.601 0.002*

Non-users 3.306

Supermarkets

Prior Experiences Users 3.257 0.787

Non-users 3.233

Organic labels
trust

Users 2.804 0.843

Non-users 2.822

Brand and Store Users 3.425 0.008*

Non-users 3.363

Table 5. T-tests for Most Used Channels of Distribution *sig. at 5%

8.3.3 Trusted channels of distribution
The most trusted channel of distribution is the organic food store followed by health food
stores, and the direct channel producer-to-consumer. Interestingly enough, supermarkets
ranked fourth ahead of local markets (all means higher than 3 on a 5-point Likert scale).
Data has been recoded to address some of the complex issues related to distribution.
Respondents were asked to assess seven OF channels of distribution using a 5-point Likert
scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = totally agree. Each scale has been recoded as
follow: high trust consumers (score 4 to 5) and low trust consumers (score 1 to 3). 12 t-tests
have been run to determine if there is a significant difference between the level of trust and
the trust dimensions (store and brand, organic labels trust, prior experiences) of the 4 major
channels of distribution (organic food stores, supermarkets, direct channel, and health food
stores). Results show that consumers trust all channels of distribution to certain degrees, but
also that there are no major differences between RC and non-RC for all levels of trust and
most channels of distribution. Consumers trust all channels of distribution but consumers'
trust orientations intervene only when choosing to shop from an organic food store. Further,
when it comes to the most used channel of distribution, it appears that trust orientations are
the main cause for channels of distribution utilization.