Factors Influencing Consumers’ Behaviour towards Purchasing Organic Foods: A Theoretical Model

Abstract

Consumers’ interest in organic food has increased over time and this has resulted in a generally positive attitude towards organic food products. The main reasons behind these findings are that consumers generally perceive organic foods as more nutritious and healthier than non-organic foods. Recently, consumers’ concerns about the environment and animal welfare have become part of the main drivers. Hence, this paper investigated the association between stimulus factors, perceived values (health value, environmental value, animal welfare and food safety) and consumers’ organic purchasing behaviour using the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) theoretical model. Also, the relationship between socio-demographic characteristics and purchasing behaviour has been discussed. Data were collected via an online questionnaire from 330 organic food consumers who live in different cities in Turkey. The collected data were analysed using SPSS and SmartPLS 3. Marital status, education employment status and age were significantly related to consumer purchasing behaviour, while gender, income and chronic disease did not influence the actual buying of organic foods. Benefits of consuming organic foods, sustainable consumption attitudes and positive moral attitudes significantly affected perceived values (health value, environment value, animal welfare and food safety). Perceived values did not have a significant effect on consumer purchasing behaviour. This research allows for a better comprehension of consumers’ buying behaviour towards organic food products, which will be helpful for organic sellers in terms of developing strategies and growing the organic food market.