Research Information System
Journal of Food, Agriculture and Environment, vol.11, no.3-4, pp.539-548, 2013 (Scopus)
This paper aimed to reveal organic food perception and motives for purchasing organic foods among organic food consumers in Istanbul, Turkey. Previous studies considering organic food perception of customers in Turkey is limited. Growing interest in organic food in Turkey made it necessary to make a more detailed study. This work differs from previous studies conducted in Turkey in terms of sampling since participants are chosen from only organic food consumers. Thus, this work has the aim of revealing behavior of true organic consumers in Turkey. A survey was designed and carried out in 7 organic bazaars in Istanbul, Turkey. Stratified survey sampling method was used since each bazaar is in different area of Istanbul. A total of 632 organic food consumers were considered in the analysis. A likert type scale was used. In order to determine motives for buying organic food a total of 25 variables were considered. Differences among income levels of the organic food consumers were also investigated. Six factors were found appropriate after exploratory factor analysis (EFA). While taste, health, quality and containing little harm were the main motives for purchasing organic products, secondary factors like animal welfare, sensitivity to environment, were also found effective. Consumers thought that, organic food prices were high. Also they added that they would like to buy more organic food in case of improvement in variety of products and in reachability to organic foods. Regarding to income, significant differences were found in information criteria, in perception of price criteria and in popularity criteria, while no significant differences were found in main factors like taste, quality and environmental issues.