Attitude towards organic meat: an empirical investigation on West Balkans Countries (WBC) consumers

Abstract

The organic meat market in West Balkan Countries (WBC) is quite young, but steadily growing. The aim of this paper is to better enable understanding of WBC consumers' awareness, attitude and perception towards organically produced meat, i.e. to gain insight into consumers' preferences, motives, attitudes and interest to buy such products in selected WBC (Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia). This paper provides a comparison to the results obtained by researchers in other countries. A questionnaire was completed by 900 respondents, which were representative of the WBC population. The data were subject to univariate analysis, chi-square tests, ANOVA and correlation analysis. Result indicated that the definition of ‘organic’ is not yet clearly installed in consumers' perceptions. Consumers perceive organic meat as healthy, safe, natural, tasty, expensive, environmental friendly and of good quality. WBC consumers express a positive attitude towards organic meat. These results are particularly useful for product marketing and future product development in the organic food sector, as they provide an indication as how it can better reach and satisfy existing organic food consumers, and possibly, adapt organic food consumers in order to attract new segments and a new generation of consumers.

Keywords::

• organic products
• organic meat
• organic meat consumers
• consumer behaviour
• West Balkans Countries