No abstract

Background: Organic food has captured the market tremendously, yet the attitude and purchase intentions differ invariably. Many researchers have made an attempt to discuss the major barriers and motives to purchase and consume organic food. There is a need to identify how these factors contribute in drawing intention to but the organic food. Objectives: To assess the significance effect of perceived benefits & trust on willingness to pay premium prices for organic foods. Also, to test the effect of perceived benefits and trust on Customer’s satisfaction. Materials and Methods: Data on perceived benefit and trust derived from organic food was collected from 304 respondents from Delhi & NCR students hailing in different demographics through a convenience sampling technique. The authors have used structured, and pre-tested questionnaire. Linear Logistic regression analysis was done using SPSS 21.0 to find association between the perceived benefits and trust on consumer satisfaction and willingness to pay premium prices for organic food. Results: Trust and perceived benefits are the main predictors of WPPP for organic foods. Conclusion: The findings gave valuable insights for marketers to learn organic consumer’s profiles based on socio-economic variables & benefit perception. Other variables could also be used to different consumer segments with respect to their purchase behavior.

This study is intended to determine the factors affecting the consumer’s attitude and willingness to pay price premium for organic milk by analysing them using chi square test of independence and other simple descriptive method. The study reveals the result on the basis of both primary and secondary research. For this purpose, a survey of 155 respondents was conducted. SPSS software was used to get the results. According to the results, factors such as gender, annual income, prices offered, quality of organic milk and education had significant effects on consumers’ attitude. Overall, 58.1% of the respondents chose organic milk for their daily consumption. The average price willingness to pay was estimated to be 70-90 rupees per litre for organic milk. The results showed that insufficient availability, lack of knowledge and awareness and also the premium prices offered are all considered as the major pitfalls in the development of the organic market and consumption.

Universally, there has been an increased awareness about the harmful effects of chemical inputs used for production of food on soil composition, environment and human health. This has triggered the consumption level of organic food products. India has witnessed a tremendous growth in domestic as well as export market. The demand is mainly driven by consumer perceptions that organic farming is more sustainable, produces healthy food, pesticide-free and safeguards the environment & biodiversity. Organic food producers also manifests the quality and safety of food. These claims which are perceived and professed as beneficial can only be accepted if they are tested and validated. Therefore, the foremost objective of this review paper is to provide an update on set of studies related to scientific evidence for nutritional composition marking the quality of organic foods vis-à-vis conventional foods and its impact on human health. Secondly, the paper examines the comparison of the sensory quality of the organic food, and thirdly the food safety aspect of organically as compared with conventionally grown foods. Past few controlled studies have proved that there is no such evidence of differences in concentration of various nutrients amongst organic and conventional foods. Furthermore, there are certain issues related to the impact and assessment of these nutrients in organic food which requires some future directives. Owing to the heterogeneity in results observed related to nutritional quality and safety of organic foods, technological aspects together with sensory parameters are the best for future comparative studies. To safeguard the public health and to avoid the difference in sampling and sample results, testing laboratories should also be adhering to uniform standards. Organic food business in India lack standard guidelines for quality, policy framework for domestic and export market. Also, traceability is another factor which should be given prime importance to ensure removal of fraudulent practices.