Consumer attitude towards organic food: determinants of healthy behaviour

Abstract

The study's main purpose is to determine the factors affecting individuals’ attitudes towards organic products from the perspective of healthy behaviour. The population of the research is people purchasing organic products from sales points in Istanbul province. The data was gathered with a face-to-face questionnaire with 424 people shopping in organic product markets, one of the quantitative research patterns. The data were analysed and interpreted with SPSS and AMOS programs, frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, explanatory factor analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis techniques. The factors were determined by using explanatory factor analysis. The construct validity revealed by the explanatory factor analysis was also verified by the confirmatory factor analysis. Ensuring validity and reliability shows the existence of a structural relationship between the factors affecting the attitudes of consumers towards organic products. According to the explanatory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis results, the factors affecting consumers' attitudes towards organic products are gathered under 5 different dimensions. These dimensions are «consciousness», «price», «inaccessibility», «negative attitude» and «standardization». It is concluded that the Sisli Organic Market is the best-known point. Additionally, it was concluded that the most frequently used sources of information are friends’ advice, and the most preferred organic products are organic vegetables and fruits. Finally, the majority stated that they had paid attention to the organic certificates. With the increasing awareness of healthy life in recent years, individuals have attached great importance to organic products. The study tries to fill the gap in the literature in terms of Turkish consumers' attitudes towards organic product consumption and their sales point preferences. Another originality of the study is that field research has been conducted at the points where organic products are sold