Views of consumers and other food chain actors on organic food and its production

Summary

In this study we have examined what kind of views and attitudes consumers and other food chain actors have concerning organic food and its production and how these views and attitudes differ. The survey data from year 2003 consist of responses by 1 186 consumers and 333 other food chain actors. The main methods used in the analysis of survey responses were factor, cluster and discriminant analyses. With the help of these methods, consumers and other food chain actors were clustered into various groups. The discriminant analysis was based on respondents’ attitudes towards organic food and organic food production. As a result of the analysis, five differing attitudinal groups among the consumers were identified. These attitudinal groups were Believers, Committed, Neutrals, Doubters and Negatives. In addition, six differing attitudinal groups were identi-fied among the other food chain actors. These attitu-dinal groups were Believers, Supporters, Weak Doubters, Strong Doubters, Unsatisfieds and Nega-tives. The organic food chain appears to suffer from shortcomings: the products and information do not flow smoothly from producers to consumers. Conse-quently, both consumers and other food chain actors want more information about organic food production and more visibility and public sales promotion activi-ties for organic products.