Potato Marketing – Factors Affecting Organic and Conventional Potato Consumption Patterns

In producing potatoes the treatment for disease and pests could be more difficult and costly for organic producers than for conventional. Hence, consumers’ attitudes and willingness to pay for organic potatoes need to be considered in a grower’s choice of production technologies. A bivariate probit model and cluster analysis were applied to survey data to evaluate factors that influenced Germany consumers’ consumption patterns for conventional and organic potatoes. The results show that consumers associate organic potatoes with healthy ingredients, trustable origin and food safety. But a lack of varieties and inferior appearance of organic potatoes limit consumer interest in the organic products. With regard to socio-demographics, consumers with higher education level and with children in the household tend to consume organic potatoes more often than consumers with lower education and no children in the household. Cluster analysis results group potato consumers into three different market segments: “Trusting of industry”, “Health-oriented” and “Price-oriented” segments. These results suggest adopting different marketing strategies to promote fresh potatoes to the different market segments.