Understanding organic food consumption in the European Union: the interaction between health and environmental consumer's goals

Abstract

PurposeBased on goal-directed behavior, this study explores the direct effects and the interaction between health and environmental concerns as the main drivers of organic food consumption. Consumer's economic problems are proposed as the main barrier for such behavior from a cost-benefit approach theoretically grounded on decision theory.Design/methodology/approachData were collected using the 26,669 European 95.1 wave participants of the Eurobarometer survey. Logistic regression estimates are used to analyze the hypotheses postulated.FindingsThe results indicated the significant association of both health and environmental concerns with organic food consumption, as well as the existence of an interactive effect between both consumer goals. As a novel finding, health concern weakens the influence of environmental concern on organic food consumption. Consumer's economic problems harms the expansion of organic food consumption as well as other socio-demographic factors included as control variables.Originality/valueFor the first time, this research explores the interaction effect between health and environmental concerns as antecedents of organic food consumption. The study argues that these consumer goals present differential features in terms of individual importance, feasibility, abstractness and outcome demonstrability, resulting in a prevalence of health over environmental goals for some consumers. The research provides not only novel insights for understanding organic food consumption but also provides additional evidence for practitioners to develop sales strategies and policymakers to formulate policies to guide the promotion of this so desired example of sustainable consumption.