Organic food: Exploring purchase frequency to explain consumer behaviour

In order to identify some barriers preventing expansion of the organic food market, this paper reviews current literature on consumers’ buying behaviour. This reveals low levels of actual purchasing, yet fails to provide conclusive evidence regarding the reasons. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether an analysis that ‘unbundles’ the homogenous organic consumer - based on frequency of purchases - could provide insights into the reasons for this. Results from a demographically representative sample who completed an online survey in Australia (N=1011) indicate that consumers vary in their frequency of organic food purchases, from a relatively small proportion who purchase it regularly - around one in ten, to many more who have never purchased it - around one in four. The trend is towards younger consumers, those on above average incomes, and with higher levels of education being more dedicated to purchasing organic food. This includes students and the unemployed with those in full-time employment. There is a lot of ‘churn’ in the organic food market, with most who trial it – around one in five, stopping after a relatively short period of time – less than one year. For all organic food consumers concern for the natural environment is the most important motivation, followed closely by health, with product quality being of less importance. From the perspective of increasing sales the key challenge appears to be finding ways to convince existing consumers to purchase more organic products. Persuasive and targeted marketing communications will assist in achieving this, however structural issues in the organic industry, such as its massive diversity; in range in products, geographic spread and size of operations, make it hard to present consistent marketing communication messages.