Why regular buyers of organic food still buy many conventional products

Abstract

Purpose – The sales volume of organic food products in Germany has been increasing consistently over recent years, yet only a small number of households is responsible for the majority of organic purchases. Even these so-called “regular” organic food buyers spend, on average, less than half of their budget on organic products. The present study aims to analyse the reasons why these consumers do not purchase particular products in organic quality, in order to uncover product gaps and purchase barriers. Design/methodology/approach – The investigation is based on computer-aided, personal interviews among regular organic food buyers, which were conducted in retail and organic food stores across Germany. Altogether, 817 interviews were carried out. To minimize regional variation in the data-set, stores were selected from north, south, west and east Germany in equal proportions. Findings – The most important reasons for not purchasing organic products among regular organic food consumers were price, insufficient availability, and the quality of the product. Since product-specific analysis was carried out in this study, the results indicate that the relevance of reasons varies from product to product and according to shop types. Originality/value – To the authors' knowledge, no research to date has dealt with an analysis of product-specific purchase barriers in the context of regular organic food buyers. Furthermore, in contrast with other studies, a preceding analysis of panel data identifying product groups with the lowest organic market shares builds the basis for a well-grounded survey. The explorative character of the study results in unique findings on consumer purchase behaviour related to specific products in a variety of predefined product categories.