Consumers’ perceptions and preferences for local food: A review

This article reviews the scientific literature on local food from the consumer’s perspective and analyses findings through the application of the Alphabet Theory – a newly developed theoretical framework for consumer behavior towards alternative food choices. As consumers’ interest in local food has steadily increased in the past fifteen years, so has the number of research studies on consumers’ attitudes and purchase behavior with regard to local food. A literature search was carried out on three online catalogues using the search terms ‘local’, ‘regional’, ‘food’, and ‘consumer’. Only articles published in English and from January 2000 until January 2014 were taken into account. In all, the literature search returned 550 scientific articles. This paper provides an overview of 73 relevant publications, summarizes the main results, and identifies research gaps in the context of the Alphabet Theory. One major result was that, unlike organic food, local food is not perceived as expensive. Nevertheless, consumers are willing to pay a premium for local food. In mostly quantitative studies, consumer characteristics, attitudes, and purchase behaviors with regard to local food were assessed. Research gaps were identified in various areas: cross-national (cultural) comparisons, influence of different types of products (fresh vs. non-perishable, processed vs. non-processed, or plant vs. animal products), origin of foodstuffs used to produce local food as well as the influence of personal and social norms on the formation of attitudes towards local food. This contribution appears to be the first review of scientific articles from the field of local food consumption to present an overview on international research and to identify research gaps