The macroeconomic indicators influence the consumption of selected organic food under the conditions of global climate change – a case study from the Czech Republic

Abstract

Since the beginning of the 21st century, within the framework of food consumption in the Czech Republic, organic food consumption has also begun to be statistically monitored. This consumption is influenced by several factors, such as consumer demand, their changing attitudes, and beliefs about the correctness of their consumption, but also the owners and managers of companies producing organic food and their willingness and decision to offer organic food to consumers. The content of this paper is to search for the connections between selected macroeconomic indicators and their influence on total household consumption and, within it, on the consumption of certain groups of food and organic food. More than twenty years of statistical monitoring shows how selected macroeconomic indicators and food consumption, including organic foods and their main groups, were developed. During approximately twenty years of development, it is possible to identify several fluctuations with varying intensity in growth, stagnation and decrease. An example is the current economic situation manifested by significant movements in the leading macroeconomic indicators to varying extents in the Czech Republic and several other countries, not only in Europe. The deterioration of the macroeconomic indicators results understandably raises concerns about the future development of consumption and the applicability of the generally produced more expensive organic food on the market. Therefore, The author team investigated the correlation between selected macroeconomic indicators, total food consumption and, in particular, the consumption of selected organic foods and evaluated the course of changes over time between 1993-2021. The influence of selected macro indicators on changes in the consumption of organic foods in the Czech Republic was assessed. The previously published papers deal with food and organic food consumption from different perspectives but not from the perspective of examining the correlation between consumption and three chosen macroeconomic indicators. The present contribution thus aims to fill this existing gap.