Demand system analysis of consumer purchase of organic and plant-based alternatives to selected food products

The objective of the report is to analyse purchasing patterns of organic food products and plant-based alternatives and examine how sensitive the consumption of these products is to changes in prices. The report analyses are based on consumer purchasing panel data from five EU countries – Germany, Spain, France, Italy and Finland – for 2018–2022. The report finds that consumption patterns of organic food products and plant-based alternatives are heterogeneous across countries, products and socioeconomic household groups. The econometric estimates show that (i) the magnitudes of the own-price elasticities of organic products, plant-based alternatives and conventional products vary across products and countries, ranging between – 0.13 and – 1.30, (ii) the price sensitivity of the sustainable products is more heterogeneous than that of their conventional counterparts and (iii) changes in the prices of organic products minimally affect the purchasing quantities of their conventional counterparts (i.e. the corresponding cross-price elasticities mostly range between – 0.05 and 0.05), while changes in the prices of the conventional products tend to affect the purchases of organic products (i.e. the corresponding cross-price elasticities mostly range between – 0.50 and 0.50).