Consumers, decision makers and local or organic food. Possibilities for SMEs

Summary

Consumers are more and more interested in the trasparency of the food chain. Local food and organic food are trends that consumers believe to be strengthened both in Finland and in their own food choices. The increased interest towards local food provides marketing opportunities especially for SMEs in the food sector. SMEs operate most often on local markets and they could take more systematic advantage of locality in their business initiatives and marketing efforts. The objective of the project is to promote the preconditions of SMEs by studying both consumers´ and decision makers´ attitudes to local food. The study is carried out in an interactive co-operation between MTT Economic Research, National Consumer Research Centre Finland (project coordinator) and VTT Biotechnology.