Regionale Lebensmittel: Sprechen Kunden und Unternehmen die gleiche Sprache?

Summary

The combination of organic and regional marketing might provide an opportunity to
render small organic shops more successful again. The term regional has no legal
regulation and consumers as well as scientists have many different understandings
which aspects are involved with it and how to define it. The objective of this study is to
develop sophisticated criteria for the analysis of the different conceptions consumers
have in mind when it comes to local food. For this purpose 261 consumers in five
organic shops located in different German areas where asked in open interviews. The
results show that the distance between the place of production/cultivation and the
consumers´ home is an important aspect for local organic food. But the definition of
local food differs between Northern and Southern Germany as well as between consumers
in cities and those in villages.