Consumers' perception of the health aspects of organic food

Abstract

Organic foods are grown using the principles of organic agriculture that are produced, processed and packaged without using chemicals. They have been accepted due to their several perceived benefits over the conventional food. Health aspects of organic food are, in addition to the ethical, environmental, hedonic and "feel good" aspects, the main benefits that the consumers appreciate in organic food. This paper presents the results of a quantitative survey in the Czech organic food market. By using the factor analysis, it showed that the consumer perception of the health benefits of organic food can be viewed from several different angles. There were found three factors that explain 58.42% of variability, which are, based on their relationship with the original items, interpreted as the "knowledge and responsibility", "being aware, but lax" and "health is important, but not related to food". The first factor contains enough knowledge related to the health care, the conviction of the importance of food choice regarding health and the active interest and effort to do something for one's health. The second factor contains enough knowledge related to health care, but is lacking the interest to apply the knowledge and to do something for one's health, and the third factor contains the conviction that health is an important asset, but the perception of the connection between one's health and food is absent.

Keywords

• consumer behaviour
• factor analysis
• marketing mix
• quantitative research