Consumer Willingness to Pay for Organic Food in Urban Turkey

Abstract

The objective is to explore the Turkish consumers' perceptions regarding food safety and the trade-offs they make between chemical residues and cosmetic quality in fresh fruit and vegetables. The data is obtained through consumer focus groups and consumer surveys with a representative sample of Turkish urban population. Higher income and educated individuals show more interest and have more knowledge of organic products. The choice depends on consumers perception of nutritional value and health risk. We find that consumers do not perceive that organic products have higher prices than conventional counterparts. Consumer willingness to pay for products with organic labels and certified products is up to 36%.

KEYWORDS:

• consumer preferences
• organic fruits and vegetables
• perceived risk
• willingness to pay

Financial support of the project is provided by TÜBİTAK under Cost Programme (Cost 924). We thank TÜBİTAK Research Group on Social Science and Humanities for providing the research grant.

Notes

Note.Profession of the household member who brings home the majority of income.

^a

Note. Pearson chi-square value = 23.025; Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) = .000.

Note. Pearson chi-square value = 11.846; Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) = .037.

^a Thirteen individuals did not give information regarding their incomes.

Note. Scale = Never (1), Rarely (2), Occasionally (3), Often (4), Nearly always (5).

Note. Scale = Not at all important (1), Somewhat important (2), Moderately important (3), Important (4), Very important (5).

Note. Scale = Much worse (1), Worse (2), About the same (3), Better (4), Much better (5).

Note. Scale = Never (1), Rarely (2), Occasionally (3), Often (4), Nearly always (5).

Note. Scale = Never (1), Rarely (2), Occasionally (3), Often (4), Nearly always (5).

Note. Dependent variable = 0 or 1; 0 if the consumer is not aware of organic products and 1 if the consumer is aware of organic products. Variables are defined in the Appendix.

***Significant at α = 0.01. **Significant at α = 0.05.

Note. Dependent variable = per capita tomato consumption.

***Significant at α = 0.01. **Significant at α = 0.05. *Significant at α = 0.10.

OLS = ordinary least squares.

Details regarding the random sampling scheme can be obtained from the authors.