ORGANIC AND LOCAL FOOD MARKET – ALTERNATIVES OR COOPERATION POSSIBILITY?

The market for local and organic food is still a niche market in Hungary. Both offer consumers an alternative to the anonymous, globalized food supply chain. Yet local food and organic food seem to be overlapping and to some degree competing food concepts. The main focus is to explore the perception of Hungarian consumers towards local and organic food, using results from one research. We chose quantitative research as a method and carried out random interviews on a nationwide representative sample of 1000 respondents. Food of organic origin is considered somewhat important for 4 out of 10 respondents (38.9%), while the majority (59.8%) is neutral towards this aspect of products. At the same time, in the case of local products, origin is partially or wholly important for as much as 72.9% of the interviewees. We found it very important that 92.5% of respondents prefer to buy local foods versus imported foods (if sold at the same price), whereas the number drops to 81.3% in the case of organic foods. Our research reveals that the production and sales of local and organic foods is of very high (strategic) importance in our country as reflected in consumer needs. To that end producers, processors, traders and NGOs – in collaboration – need to create a quality product base, and a sales strategy that needs to be well communicated and reflect special characteristics