Department of Innovation, Sensory and Consumer Sciences, Nofima AS, NO-1431 Ås, Norway.
Department of Applied Economics and Marketing, School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6AR, UK.
Nutrients. 2019 Dec 4;11(12):2951. doi: 10.3390/nu11122951.
Consumer interest towards healthy food is driving the growth of the organic food market because consumers perceive organic food products to improve their personal health. Berries have well-known health benefits and show increasing market shares in European markets. This manuscript investigates for the first time how health attitudes relate to organic consumers' choices for nutrient labels of organic dried strawberry products. We conducted an online survey with 614 consumers from Norway, Romania, and Turkey. All participants consumed and liked strawberries and purchased organic food at least once a month. Participants filled out attitudinal questionnaires and conducted an experimental choice task featuring paired images of packaged organic dried strawberries varying in nutrients content label and other factors. The pooled sample was split into three groups of varying health attitudes for profiling and choice analysis. The results show that broad variations exist in health attitudes among Norwegian, Romanian, and Turkish organic consumers. A non-linear effect of health attitude is revealed, where a moderate health attitude is more strongly associated with the selection of products with increased nutrients content than either a low or a high health attitude. The results highlight the complexity in targeting nutrition labels to organic consumers. Finally, implications and suggestions for organic food operators are discussed along with future research avenues.
消费者对健康食品的兴趣推动了有机食品市场的增长,因为消费者认为有机食品产品可以改善个人健康。浆果具有众所周知的健康益处,并在欧洲市场显示出不断增长的市场份额。本文首次调查了健康态度如何与有机消费者对有机干草莓产品营养标签的选择有关。我们对来自挪威、罗马尼亚和土耳其的 614 名消费者进行了在线调查。所有参与者都食用和喜欢草莓,并至少每月购买一次有机食品。参与者填写了态度问卷,并进行了一项实验性选择任务,其中有两张包装好的有机干草莓的图片,其营养成分标签和其他因素有所不同。汇总样本分为三个不同健康态度组进行分析。结果表明,挪威、罗马尼亚和土耳其的有机消费者之间存在广泛的健康态度差异。健康态度呈非线性影响,中等健康态度与选择增加营养成分的产品的相关性比低或高健康态度更强。结果强调了针对有机消费者的营养标签的复杂性。最后,讨论了对有机食品经营者的影响和建议,并提出了未来的研究方向。