Examining U.S. Food Retailers’ Decisions to Procure Local and Organic Produce From Farmer Direct-to-Retail Supply Chains

U.S. food retailing is a competitive sector that has undergone rapid changes. The U.S. market for organic products has expanded rapidly over the last decade, while local foods have become a more visible marketing strategy. Studies focusing on the marketing of these products by retailers are sparse and generally qualitative. This article is the first quantitative examination of the connection between the local and organic retailing. A sample selection model is used with data from a 2008 national survey of organic retailers to study supplier interactions and company characteristics that influence a retailer’s decision to procure local organic produce directly from farmers, and the rate at which they procure these products. The results show that the number of years a store has sold organic products and the size of the company, as well as aspects prioritized in choosing suppliers and past problems interacting with local suppliers, affect the outcomes.     

加入WTO后应大力发展绿色食品、有机食品和无公害食品

环境对绿色食品、有机食品和无公害食品具有影响,加入WTO后面临着发展机遇与挑战。为了 加快绿色食品、有机食品和无公害食品的发展,应大力培养绿色食品、有机食品和无公害食品的专业人 才及管理人才。     

The mediation effects of consumers’ need recognition and pre-purchase evaluation in consumers’ decision-making on purchasing safe street food: The case in Nakhon Si Thammarat,Thailand

Nakhon Si Thammarat province is one of the largest cities in Thailand and offers various types of street foods in the city. However, the number of street vendors that pass food safety certification is very low. Nevertheless, there are many consumers who still purchase street food because of their lifestyle who are exposed to food safety risks. Therefore, this research aims to evaluate how consumers make their decisions about the safety of the street food. This study investigates the importance of the need recognition and pre-purchase evaluation stages in consumers’ decision-making in relation to their purchasing of safe street food. The results from the structural equation modeling analysis found that, at 95%, the confidential need recognition would act as a partial mediator between consumers’ motivation → pre-purchase evaluation on purchasing safe food and consumers’ food safety knowledge → pre-purchase evaluation. In turn, pre-purchase evaluation would act as a full mediator between consumers’ motivation and safe street food purchasing. The findings signify that the stages of need recognition and pre-purchase evaluation in the decision-making process are important in order to reduce consumers' food risk while purchasing street food. Therefore, encouraging consumers to recognize the importance of purchasing safe food and convincing them to be concerned when selecting food is necessary to prevent consumers from unsafe food consumption.     

Organic and local food consumer behaviour: Alphabet Theory

Semi‐structured interviews are conducted to understand why consumers buy organic and/or local foods. The interview findings are consistent with existing theoretical frameworks for explaining environmentally significant behaviour: Value‐Belief‐Norm (VBN) theory and Attitude‐Behaviour‐Context (ABC) theory. Findings show that organic food shoppers in particular are motivated by values, beliefs and the creation of norms. However, the interviews indicate that knowledge (K), information seeking (IS) and habit (H) are also important in understanding why consumers choose organic and local foods. Incorporating demographics (D) as well, the resulting VBN‐ABC‐D‐K‐IS‐H or ‘Alphabet Theory’ is presented as a new framework to explain organic and local food purchase behaviour.     

Why Do Some Consumers Prefer Organic Food? A Discourse Analytical Perspective

In an attempt to better understand the main motives behind organic food consumption, this study explores the consumer discourses of organic food. In all, 35 in-depth interviews were conducted, from which three major discourses were identified. These discourses were named primitivist, retro, and racialist. The data suggest that these Romantic discourses play on images of a supposedly glorious and innocent past. Consequently, consumers using these three discourses were more likely to prefer organic food, as they had a tendency to construct this type of food as more natural, authentic, and real. In this sense, Romantic discourses seem to offer more resonant themes for consumers than contemporary modern science can ever provide.     

发达国家支持发展有机食品产业的措施及对我国的启示

作为20世纪末期蓬勃发展起来的一个新兴食品产业,有机食品产业以其绿色、环保的优势具有广阔的发展前景。本文探讨了发达国家支持有机食品产业发展的做法,在此基础上,提出了我国加快发展有机食品产业应采取的措施。     

Consumer Preferences for ‘Localness’ and Organic Food Production

While organic food is based on well-defined production criteria, the criteria for ‘local’ food are less clear. This study investigates the preferences and trade-offs of distinct consumer segments relative to organic production and several dimensions of local food (sales channel, size of company, and geographical location of animals used in the production). The analysis is based on a quantitative survey of 505 Danish consumers and a choice experiment involving beef salami. Data were analyzed in a principal component and a latent class analysis. We identify five consumer segments whose preferences for organic and local product attributes differed substantially. Most respondents considered geographical proximity in the raising of cattle to be the most important attribute and a third of the consumers were willing to pay a premium for organic salami. The segmentation provides more detailed information about stated consumer behavior than what is typically elicited when considering only average consumer behavior.     

有机农业对农业经济的促进作用浅析

有机农业是一种新型产业,它既能解决人们普遍关心的饮食安全问题又能很好地保护生态环境,对人类社会的可持续发展有着重要的意义。有机农业在我国有一定的发展优势,有机食品有着很大的市场发展潜力和很高的经济效益,对建设新农村,解决“三农”问题,促进农业经济的发展有着不可替代的作用。     

Feeding Fido: Changing Consumer Food Preferences Bring Pets to the Table

Consumers increasingly demand premium foods that satisfy particular lifestyle requirements. Simultaneously, premium pet foods lead the $18 billion U.S. pet food market. Using a Heckman two-stage decision model, we investigate the relationship between consumers’ food choices for themselves and food choices for their pets. Premium human food consumers with higher education and incomes are more likely to purchase premium pet food. This study also reveals a surprising age cohort effect: younger consumers are more likely to purchase premium pet food, despite budget constraints. The findings have implications for pet food marketing strategies. They also suggest an expected increase in demand for pet food ingredient transparency and pet food safety policy.     

Does country matter in urban organic food products consumption?

The main goal of this paper is to evaluate the possibility of finding international consumer segments in the organic food product (OFP) market. For that purpose, the power of country of residence in discriminating between urban frequent, occasional and non‐consumers of OFP was evaluated; and the most appropriate international segmentation bases for that market were studied. In order to achieve this goal, a survey of organic food consumers from Lisbon (Portuguese) and Berlin (German) was implemented through a structured questionnaire. Upon this, factorial and discriminant analysis was applied to the data. The results highlight the significance of the “Country” variable when distinguishing between groups of urban OFP consumers and non‐consumers as well as between frequent and occasional urban OFP consumers. The different levels of OFP consumption are mostly explained by the level of declared “OFP knowledge”. Therefore, we can conclude that in order to increase the consumption of OFP and dilute the effect of the country variable and to be able to work with international segments, marketers should aim to increase awareness and knowledge on these products. It is important to mention that this study was based on a non‐probabilistic sample and, consequently, generalizations of its conclusions must be made with care.