Consumers' Approach towards Organic Foods and Marketing Communication Suggestions

Abstract

Organic food draws the attention of both researchers and practitioners in recent years. Furthermore, since it contributes to sustainability, organic food consumption is also encouraged by governments. A significant part of the studies on organic food investigates the reasons to purchase organic food. Moreover, organic food literature mostly includes samples from abroad, where the organic food market is bigger and more mature. This study aims to investigate barriers to organic food purchasing in Turkey with the perspective of consumers, and also shed light on organic food brands' marketing communication efforts with consumers' insight on organic food. In line with this purpose, in depth interview which is a technique of qualitative research was used to collect the data. The results of the study show that the main barriers between organic food and consumers are lack of distribution; individual factors consisting of being busy and personality-related factors; lack of trust in distributors, producers and country of origin; price; perception of other people; being too natural; not being different from conventional alternatives. Information sources for organic food, the evocations of organic food to consumers, factors pointing that a product is organic, the consumers' evaluations of the profiles of people who consume organic food are also investigated in order to provide marketing solutions related to the barriers. Based on the findings, effective practices are recommended in the framework of marketing communications.