Developing-Economy preferences for imported organic food products

Abstract

Preference for imported products are often found in developing countries. A mixed method case study is employed to investigate why and when, using Thailand and organic food as the case. In-store interviews (N = 67), two focus groups (N = 16) and an online survey with consumers screened for knowledge of organic food (N = 965) are reported. A domestic country bias is revealed, but co-existing with a higher trust in the standards and certifications of developed countries. Hence, developed countries' credible institutions are a competitive advantage that allows them to compete with similar but cheaper products from developing countries.

KEYWORDS:

• Country of origin
• trust
• organic food
• thailand
• mixed method

Note

Acknowledgements

This paper is an outcome of the SOMDwIT project, which is part of the Organic RDD 2.2 program, coordinated by ICROFS (International Centre for Research in Organic Food Systems). The project is funded by the Green Development and Demonstration Programme under the Danish Ministry for the Environment and Food. The data collection instruments were developed in the project in collaboration with Susanne Pedersen, Jessica Aschemann-Witzel, Eva Schwendel and Maria Paternoga. We are grateful to MKTGD52 MBA 2015 students at Sasin for collecting and transcribing in-store interviews, to Ms. Sudatip Piyavee and Ms. Issariya Woraphiphat for carrying out and transcribing the focus group interviews, to Birgitte Steffensen for correcting the English and to Susanne Pedersen and Jessica Aschemann-Witzel for helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

Notes

1 RQ is an abbreviation of ”research question”, see the Research Questions section above.