Marketing organic food in Australia: a study of factors influencing consumers' purchase intention

The organic food industry is experiencing much growth across the globe. Currently, organic food is perceived as healthy, safe and environmentally friendly. Thus, most nutrition experts advise consumers to consume organic foods due to their health benefits. Research on factors influencing Australian consumers’ organic food purchasing intentions is limited. Further, there is a lack of exploratory studies considering the main factors that potentially influence consumers’ organic food purchases. There is a need to conduct further research using a mixed methods approach to empirically investigate the influence of various factors on consumers’ organic food purchasing intentions. This study aims to explore the key factors that influence Australians’ organic food purchasing intentions. It also aims to empirically examine the influence of various factors on consumers’ purchasing intentions of organic food. The present study employed an exploratory sequential mixed methods approach to collect and analyse data to achieve the objectives of the study and to answer the research questions. First, the researcher used a qualitative study with 30 participants to explore the key factors that motivate consumers to purchase organic food. The mall intercept method was utilised as the sampling method and thematic analysis was employed using NVivo. The study unveiled various factors that may influence consumers’ decisions to purchase organic food. The study revealed that health concerns, price, labelling, availability, trust, environmental concerns, certification, taste, packaging, nutritional value, quality, subjective norms and social media are the most important factors influencing consumers’ purchases of organic food. Second, a quantitative study was employed using a survey of 390 respondents to confirm the findings of the exploratory study. The statistical software, SPSS and AMOS, were used to analyse the survey data. The results of the quantitative study confirmed that certification, packaging, sensory food attributes and social media positively influence both consumers’ trust and intentions to purchase organic food. Further, the results show that trust has a positive influence on consumers’ organic food purchasing intentions. Health concerns and subjective norms positively influence purchasing intentions. It was found that environmental concerns have no influence on consumers’ organic food purchasing intentions. The study asserts that there are statistically significant differences between demographic variables such as gender, income, education, employment status and number of children, towards organic food purchasing intentions. Age, occupation, marital status and ethnicity were not significant. The study increases the body of knowledge by identifying the main factors that influence consumers’ intentions to buy organic food in the Australian context. Further, the study fills gaps identified in the literature. Moreover, the findings of the study can help organic food industry stakeholders in the formulation of marketing strategies to attract more consumers towards organic food. Limitations of the research are also identified and these provide avenues for future research