Selected Aspects of the Behaviour of People who Buy Organic Food as Illustrated by the Opinions of Respondents from the Podkarpackie Voivodeship

Abstract

This study presents the opinions of 500 respondents residing in 5 communes in the Pod-karpackie Voivodeship on the significance and consciousness of buying, and the preferred charac-teristics of organic foods. The vast majority (83%) of respondents attached great importance to purchasing organic foods. The market behaviour of these consumers was rational, since they con-sciously made their choices related to purchasing organic foods and preferred their characteristics and local origin. The types of the most important factors taken into account by the surveyed con-sumers in relation to the effective demand for organic foods were also specified. Advocates of high-quality organic foods made up the most numerous group, i.e. more than one-third of all the surveyed subjects. Second most numerous group included consumers paying special attention to safe food (27%). For more than 23% of the surveyed population, the positive effect of organic foods on health was the most important. Therefore, they made up the third most-numerous group. A relatively lower percentage of the surveyed individuals concerned those consumers who paid attention mainly to the price and promotion of the products in question. Those interested in prices comprised nearly 9%, and in promotion – only 6%. At the same time, it is worth highlighting that the level of these factors was greatly diversified in terms of the adopted demographic and social criteria (gender, age, education, number of people in the family) and in respect of net income per family member. The scale of positive opinions on the importance of the purchased organic products, conscious market behaviour, as well as the types of factors taken into account by the respondents while buying organic foods, proved that the surveyed group of consumers from the Podkarpackie Voivodeship was interested in organic food consumption and purchasing this kind of goods.