MAIN MOTIVATIONS OF ORGANIC FOOD CONSUMERS IN ITALY. THE CASE OF OLIVE OIL

Abstract

Despite the widespread growth of organic farming in Europe, the behavior of organic food markets differs among countries. Thus, in some countries such as Italy there is a great imbalance between production and consumption, causing part of the production to go to foreign markets. This situation is evident in olive oil, an emblematic product in the Italian agricultural sector. In this context, the development of internal demand is a priority. However, in order to design effective marketing strategies that contribute to such development, it is necessary to know the consumer’s behavior. Under the hypothesis that the main reason for consumers to buy is altruistic (associated with the environment, ecology, animal welfare or rural and local development), the aim of this study was to know the main motivations of the organic olive oil consumer. The response to this objective was based on the Means-End Theory and for the analysis the “Hard laddering” technique was used, applied to a sample of 25 subjects. The results showed that health is the ultimate goal that motivates the purchase of organic olive oil, and that selfish motivations prevail over altruistic ones in the decision to buy or consume this type of food.