Green Marketing Practices: Its Antecedents and Impact on Quality in Indian Food Processing Industry

Abstract

Green marketing initiatives focus on the values and efforts that various companies incorporate into their marketing portfolio. This study analyses the green marketing process and practices prevalent in the food industry of India. Green marketing, along with greening the product and the firm by converting the 4Ps (price, product, promotion and place) of marketing into 4Ps of green marketing, involves a careful understanding of consumer preferences and purchase decision process. An in-depth review of the recent literature indicates that most of the aspects of green marketing align synergistically with the framework in the developed nations and, though it may appear to lag behind momentarily, it is catching-up quickly among Asian countries, including India. With the conscious-consumer at the helm, green marketing is increasingly viewed as a relevant marketing strategy in India towards sustainable development of the food industry. A questionnaire-based survey method was used for the data collection from food companies in India. The data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis was also performed. It was found after analysis that the green marketing practices were positively associated with the product quality. It was also found that the green marketing practices have a positive significant impact on the environmental preservation. Hence, it can be suggested that green marketing practices lead to environmental preservation. In the long-term, both the consumers and the food processing industry stand to benefit greatly from such green marketing initiatives and awareness but the policies and strategies need to be formulated and implemented accordingly.