Frequency of consumption and changing determinants of purchase decision: from attributes to values in the organic food market

Abstract

Increasing saturation, maturity and globalisation in the agricultural goods market is forcing suppliers to innovate in order to sustain their business performance. One of the options open to them is to gain a deeper understanding of existing and potential customers in order to develop marketing strategies tailored to meet their priorities. This paper contributes to this option by identifying the food choice process for regular and occasional consumers of organic products. Consumer behaviour is modelling using the means-end chain method, which, as well as consumers’ interest in product attributes also considers their knowledge of themselves and their personal involvement in the organic food choice process. The results show that the purchase choice between both consumer groups. For regular consumers the two main components in the final purchase choice are health and self-image. Therefore market positioning should pay attention to these personal consumer priorities in addtition to the product differentiating features. Break down the cognitive barriers that continue to hamper the development of this market.