Customers’ perspectives on the quality of organic olive oil in Greece

Abstract

Consumers’ increasing need for safe and quality food has motivated this market research study. A customer satisfaction approach is followed to examine whether the quality of organic olive oil, the most important biological product that has recently entered the Greek food market, could affect consumers’ purchasing behavior. For this purpose a survey was conducted in the region of Thessaloniki, Greece. The implemented methodology is called MUlticriteria Satisfaction Analysis (MUSA) and takes into account that customers’ global satisfaction for organic olive oil depends on five criteria. The analysis showed that the average global satisfaction index was almost 78 percent. Health was considered to be the competitive advantage of organic olive oil. On the contrary, promotion and disposition seemed to be its greatest weaknesses. The price, along with the package, was also found to be significant. Finally, gives some recommendations for the continuing improvement of information and advertising, label information and image of the package, which are the weak characteristics of organic olive oil.