"Trust weakens as distance grows" : Finnish results of the OMIaRD consumer focus group study on organic foods

Summary

Consumers' views and ideas about organic foods are multifaceted and complex. Consumers have different, even contradictory expectations and views. There is no one shared view of what organic foods are, what they represent and how the production and consumption of organic foods should develop in the future.
We can divide the issues relating to the image of organic products into two categories: firstly, issues which consumers can judge for themselves by looking at and tasting the products and secondly, issues which are largely trust-based and cannot be evaluated by examining the products on the market but require trust in the whole system of organic production. Price, quality and level of processing belong to the first category, whereas purity, healthfulness, environmental effects and animal well-being are part of the second. Origin and vicinity of production could be seen as somewhere in the middle.
One of the most central elements of organic foods relates to trust. For many informants the very essence of organic food was that it is not anonymous, i. e. both the physical distance and the "psychological distance" is short.