IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/bstrat/v27y2018i7p1039-1051.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Breaking niche sustainable products into the mainstream: Organic milk and free‐range eggs

Author

Listed:
  • Phani Kumar Chintakayala
  • William Young
  • Ralf Barkemeyer
  • Michelle A. Morris

Abstract

We contribute to the existing literature on factors influencing sustainable product consumption behavior by (a) employing actual supermarket sales data from over 300 outlets in England covering up to 18 million customers, and by (b) examining two products that can both be labeled as sustainable but have very different market positions: organic milk as a typical niche product, and free‐range eggs which (based on market share) can be seen as a mainstream product. Our study has looked into the influence of factors such as deprivation and race, which have not previously been looked into. The results partially confirm previous research, which is mostly based on self‐reported behavior, identifying both price and deprived catchment areas as barriers but green attitudes as a facilitator while more affluent people purchase organic milk. What is new from our work is that convenience stores have a negative influence and for organic milk, older families and those aged 25–44 years have a positive influence. Crucially, we identify clear differences between purchasing behaviors regarding niche and mainstream products in our analysis: while purchases of organic milk can be predicted by a wide range of sociodemographic factors, this is not the case for free‐range eggs. Here, besides price and green attitudes, there are no other influences on behavior. The results of our study can therefore provide fresh insight into the debate around recent attempts to mainstream sustainable product consumption.

Suggested Citation

  • Phani Kumar Chintakayala & William Young & Ralf Barkemeyer & Michelle A. Morris, 2018. "Breaking niche sustainable products into the mainstream: Organic milk and free‐range eggs," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(7), pages 1039-1051, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:27:y:2018:i:7:p:1039-1051
    DOI: 10.1002/bse.2050
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.2050
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/bse.2050?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mette Wier & Katherine O'Doherty Jensen & Laura Morch Andersen & Katrin Millock, 2008. "The Character of Demand in Mature Organic Food Markets: Great Britain and Denmark Compared," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-00343683, HAL.
    2. Dara O'Rourke & Abraham Ringer, 2016. "The Impact of Sustainability Information on Consumer Decision Making," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 20(4), pages 882-892, August.
    3. William Young & Kumju Hwang & Seonaidh McDonald & Caroline J. Oates, 2010. "Sustainable consumption: green consumer behaviour when purchasing products," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 20-31.
    4. Olga Chkanikova & Oksana Mont, 2015. "Corporate Supply Chain Responsibility: Drivers and Barriers for Sustainable Food Retailing," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 22(2), pages 65-82, March.
    5. Mette Wier & Katherine O'Doherty Jensen & Laura Morch Andersen & Katrin Millock, 2008. "The Character of Demand in Mature Organic Food Markets: Great Britain and Denmark Compared," Post-Print halshs-00343683, HAL.
    6. Muhammad Mohsin Butt & Saadia Mushtaq & Alia Afzal & Kok Wei Khong & Fon Sim Ong & Pui Fong Ng, 2017. "Integrating Behavioural and Branding Perspectives to Maximize Green Brand Equity: A Holistic Approach," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(4), pages 507-520, May.
    7. Sihem Dekhili & Mohamed Akli Achabou, 2013. "Price Fairness in the Case of Green Products: Enterprises' Policies and Consumers' Perceptions," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(8), pages 547-560, December.
    8. Hee-Jung Choi & Michael K. Wohlgenant & Xiaoyong Zheng, 2013. "Household-Level Welfare Effects of Organic Milk Introduction," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1009-1028.
    9. Smith, Travis A. & Huang, Chung L. & Lin, Biing-Hwan, 2009. "Does Price or Income Affect Organic Choice? Analysis of U.S. Fresh Produce Users," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 41(3), pages 1-14, December.
    10. Diamantopoulos, Adamantios & Schlegelmilch, Bodo B. & Sinkovics, Rudolf R. & Bohlen, Greg M., 2003. "Can socio-demographics still play a role in profiling green consumers? A review of the evidence and an empirical investigation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 465-480, June.
    11. Papke, Leslie E & Wooldridge, Jeffrey M, 1996. "Econometric Methods for Fractional Response Variables with an Application to 401(K) Plan Participation Rates," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(6), pages 619-632, Nov.-Dec..
    12. Irene Tilikidou, 2007. "The effects of knowledge and attitudes upon Greeks' pro‐environmental purchasing behaviour," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(3), pages 121-134, July.
    13. Ngobo, Paul Valentin, 2011. "What Drives Household Choice of Organic Products in Grocery Stores?," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 90-100.
    14. Raymond J. Jones & Timothy M. Reilly & Marcus Z. Cox & Brooklyn M. Cole, 2017. "Gender Makes a Difference: Investigating Consumer Purchasing Behavior and Attitudes Toward Corporate Social Responsibility Policies," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(2), pages 133-144, March.
    15. Erica Herpen & Erjen Nierop & Laurens Sloot, 2012. "The relationship between in-store marketing and observed sales for organic versus fair trade products," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 293-308, March.
    16. Francesco Perrini & Sandro Castaldo & Nicola Misani & Antonio Tencati, 2010. "The impact of corporate social responsibility associations on trust in organic products marketed by mainstream retailers: a study of Italian consumers," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(8), pages 512-526, December.
    17. Lydia Illge & Lutz Preuss, 2012. "Strategies for Sustainable Cotton: Comparing Niche with Mainstream Markets," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(2), pages 102-113, March.
    18. Wier, Mette & O'Doherty Jensen, Katherine & Andersen, Laura Mørch & Millock, Katrin, 2008. "The character of demand in mature organic food markets: Great Britain and Denmark compared," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 406-421, October.
    19. Sang‐June Park & Sungchul Choi & Eun‐Jeong Kim, 2012. "The Relationships between Socio‐demographic Variables and Concerns about Environmental Sustainability," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(6), pages 343-354, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. María del Mar Alonso‐Almeida & José Miguel Rodríguez‐Antón & Llorenç Bagur‐Femenías & Jordi Perramon, 2020. "Sustainable development and circular economy: The role of institutional promotion on circular consumption and market competitiveness from a multistakeholder engagement approach," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(6), pages 2803-2814, September.
    2. Barkemeyer, Ralf & Young, C. William & Chintakayala, Phani Kumar & Owen, Anne, 2023. "Eco-labels, conspicuous conservation and moral licensing: An indirect behavioural rebound effect," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 204(PA).
    3. Adam Pawlewicz, 2020. "Change of Price Premiums Trend for Organic Food Products: The Example of the Polish Egg Market," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-22, February.
    4. Jean D. Kabongo, 2020. "The intellectual structure of the journal Business Strategy and the Environment: A 25‐year author cocitation analysis," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 170-179, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Barkemeyer, Ralf & Young, C. William & Chintakayala, Phani Kumar & Owen, Anne, 2023. "Eco-labels, conspicuous conservation and moral licensing: An indirect behavioural rebound effect," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 204(PA).
    2. Francisco José Torres‐Ruiz & Manuela Vega‐Zamora & Manuel Parras‐Rosa, 2018. "Sustainable Consumption: Proposal of a Multistage Model to Analyse Consumer Behaviour for Organic Foods," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 588-602, May.
    3. Ma, Junzhao & Seenivasan, Satheesh & Yan, Bingyu, 2020. "Media influences on consumption trends: Effects of the film Food, Inc. on organic food sales in the U.S," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 320-335.
    4. Jessica Aschemann-Witzel & Stephan Zielke, 2017. "Can't Buy Me Green? A Review of Consumer Perceptions of and Behavior Toward the Price of Organic Food," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(1), pages 211-251, March.
    5. Shahnaj Akter & Shahjahan Ali & Mária Fekete-Farkas & Csaba Fogarassy & Zoltán Lakner, 2023. "Why Organic Food? Factors Influence the Organic Food Purchase Intension in an Emerging Country (Study from Northern Part of Bangladesh)," Resources, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-19, January.
    6. Zhengxia He & Yanqing Zhou & Jianming Wang & Cunfang Li & Meiling Wang & Wenbo Li, 2021. "The impact of motivation, intention, and contextual factors on green purchasing behavior: New energy vehicles as an example," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(2), pages 1249-1269, February.
    7. repec:zib:zbseps:v:2:y:2022:2:1:p:44-52 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Mahnaz Mansoor & Justin Paul, 2022. "Consumers' choice behavior: An interactive effect of expected eudaimonic well‐being and green altruism," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 94-109, January.
    9. F. Testa & F. Iraldo & A Vaccari & E. Ferrari, 2015. "Why Eco‐labels can be Effective Marketing Tools: Evidence from a Study on Italian Consumers," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 252-265, May.
    10. Krystyna Mazurek-Łopacińska & Magdalena Sobocińska & Joanna Krupowicz, 2022. "Purchase Motives and Factors Shaping Consumer Behaviour on the Ecological Product Market (Poland Case Study)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-29, November.
    11. Oliver Meixner & Felix Katt, 2020. "Assessing the Impact of COVID-19 on Consumer Food Safety Perceptions—A Choice-Based Willingness to Pay Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-18, September.
    12. Laura Mørch Andersen & Thomas Bøker Lund, 2011. "Digging deeper: How do different types of organic consumers influence the increasing organic market share?," IFRO Working Paper 2011/15, University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics.
    13. Jelena Vapa-Tankosić & Svetlana Ignjatijević & Jelena Kiurski & Jovana Milenković & Irena Milojević, 2020. "Analysis of Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Organic and Local Honey in Serbia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-23, June.
    14. Vuk Radojević & Mirela Tomaš Simin & Danica Glavaš Trbić & Dragan Milić, 2020. "A Profile of Organic Food Consumers—Serbia Case-Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-22, December.
    15. Blaće, Ante & Čuka, Anica & Šiljković, Željka, 2020. "How dynamic is organic? Spatial analysis of adopting new trends in Croatian agriculture," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    16. Hoang Viet Nguyen & Ninh Nguyen & Bach Khoa Nguyen & Antonio Lobo & Phuong Anh Vu, 2019. "Organic Food Purchases in an Emerging Market: The Influence of Consumers’ Personal Factors and Green Marketing Practices of Food Stores," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(6), pages 1-17, March.
    17. Eriksson, Mattias & Strid, Ingrid & Hansson, Per-Anders, 2014. "Waste of organic and conventional meat and dairy products—A case study from Swedish retail," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 44-52.
    18. Shahjahan Ali & Shahnaj Akter & Csaba Fogarassy, 2021. "Analysis of Circular Thinking in Consumer Purchase Intention to Buy Sustainable Waste-To-Value (WTV) Foods," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-14, May.
    19. Bonfiglio, Andrea & Arzeni, Andrea, 2019. "Spatial distribution of organic farms and territorial context: An application to an Italian rural region," Bio-based and Applied Economics Journal, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA), vol. 8(3), December.
    20. Mausam Budhathoki & Sujita Pandey, 2021. "Intake of Animal-Based Foods and Consumer Behaviour towards Organic Food: The Case of Nepal," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-18, November.
    21. Isabel Carrero & Carmen Valor & Estela Díaz & Victoria Labajo, 2021. "Designed to Be Noticed: A Reconceptualization of Carbon Food Labels as Warning Labels," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-14, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:27:y:2018:i:7:p:1039-1051. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-0836 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.