The witzenhausen food inventory – organic food (WFI-OeL) an itemset for measuring consumers' attitudes and preferences for organic food in Germany

Abstract

It is well known in consumer research on ethical and sustainable products that the attitudes of consumers recorded in studies and consumers' actual purchasing behaviour often differ. This gap between expressed attitude and actual behaviour is called the 'attitude-behaviour gap'. In this study, an item set for 'organic food' was developed, which less identify intentions and motivations but rather the actual attitudes and preferences of consumers. To this end, 21 items from 16 different literature sources and research projects have been collected and tested using an online access panel in Germany. Subsequently, an item analysis was carried out, and the reliability and validity of the items were checked. An approximately normally distributed scale comprising five items was thus created. This scale was applied in a subsequent survey. Even though the results of this study need to be verified in a further representative field survey, the newly developed item set allows a more precise recording of the actual attitudes and preferences of respondents for 'organic food'.