Targeting occasional buyers - the need for quality related communication approaches

Occasional organic buyers often purchase selected organic food items according to perceived added value in terms of quality and food safety issues or perceived additional ecological and social performances along the supply chain. They clearly take a more critical view of organic food and the organic farming concept in general than regular buyers do (Richter et al., 2004; Zanoli, 2004). The main barrier preventing this group from expanding its consumption of organic food is the higher price, which, in their perception, is not justified sufficiently by added quality attributes. However, in many cases the underlying problem is related to the complexity of quality profiles which are less transparent and understandable. To tackle this issue, the paper discusses quality-related communication approaches based on a literature review and an experimental test by using the IDM method. The authors recommend gathering the relevant information attributes of organic food, relating to specific product characteristics, to focus the communication on key quality attributes and to use personal promotion of producers