Organic Food Consumers – The Irish Case

Over the past two decades, growing environmental awareness coupled with concerns about health and quality of diet have led many people to question modern agricultural practices [1], New waves of consumers are demanding organically grown foods, with health concerns prompting consumers to avoid chemical additives and pesticide residues in food fearing, despite scientific consensus to the contrary, that these foods are unsafe [2]. Consumer interest in organics has undoubtedly been fuelled by health scares of recent years, such as BSE and E-Coli, which continue to raise public concern. Growing awareness and antipathy to the introduction of genetically manipulated foods adds to consumers' fears [3], All these factors have combined to generate an extremely buoyant organic food market in the second half of the 1990's. In Ireland, the key drivers that are influencing certain consumers to choose organic foods include: food safety, healthy eating, sensory qualities and to a lesser extent environmental concerns and animal welfare. Two recent studies have highlighted the importance of these issues to purchasers of organic foods [4,5]. A study of Irish organic meat consumers highlighted the importance of food safety and health in their food choice. Not only were these factors important to them but they believe that organic meat was superior to conventional meat in terms of quality, safety, labelling, production methods and value. In another study, which examined the purchase of organic yoghurt, a means-end chain method examined the importance of values and consequences associated with product attributes. The main end values identified were ‘pleasure’, ‘family security’ and ‘equality’. Health benefits associated with organic yoghurt were important as respondents believed that organic yoghurt was free of many hazardous ingredients. Purchasers of organic yoghurt displayed high levels of environmental consciousness, however few linked the product attribute ‘organic’ to improving the environment. Interestingly, animal welfare was rarely mentioned as a motivating factor in the purchase of organic yoghurt. These two studies, discussed in detail in this chapter, provide interesting insights into the views of Irish organic consumers and the importance of their evaluation of the key characteristics of organic foods.