Health and environmental influences (e.g. pesticides, genetically modified organisms, and other non-natural substances used to grow agricultural production) have spurred consumer and marketer interest in organic foods. The organic market has recently developed considerably and is widely regarded as one of the biggest growth markets in the food industry. Organic foods are perceived as more nutritious, as well as healthier, safer, an d more environmentally friendly. Given the fast and accelerating demand for and sales of organic foods, understanding the significant factors that affect consumer organic food purchasing behaviour is essential for organic product producers, suppliers, marketing specialists, policy makers, and green restaurateurs to implement successful marketing strategies.
Organic baby food products are produced from organically grown ingredients and processing it naturally without any addition of the chemical. The emerging interest in well¬being, consciousness for greener products and awareness among the customers about the availability of safer food products is supposed to fuel the market growth for organic food shortly.
Growing urbanisation coupled with increasing dispo sable income in Russia is driving growing acceptance for organic baby food goods, not only among the high -income society but also the middle - income society. Moreover, increasing customer awareness for healthier and greener goods in support with parental attention for feeding their child with chemical free products is providing towards a developed demand for organic baby food products in Russia.
Problem statement
To state the relevant research problem, the literature review had been conducted to evaluate the factors that affect organic food purchase. After the literature review was conducted, we identified that despite the colossal literature on consumer preferences for country-of-origin on the one hand and organic food on the other, research on country-of- origin effects in the context of organic food is limited. More profoundly, there is a lack of research on how consumers estimate imported organic food goods.
Therefore, we are going to concentrate on country-of-origin factor to investigate Russian consumers’ perceptions and attitudes towards organic food from different origins. The problem is to identify organic food shopping orientations that influence the decision¬making process for Russian consumers and observe the results depending on the region where consumers live - Moscow or Saint-Petersburg. Our study goes one step further by identifying comparisons between regular and occasional buyers of organic food. The cluster analysis will be used to explore Russian consumers’ country-of-origin preferences towards organic food.
Purpose of the study
This paper aims to fill this research gap through an in -depth analysis of Russian organic food market, and particularly organic baby food market.
The goal of the study is to explore Russian consumers’ perception on organic food from different geographical origins, and identify whether there is a preference for organic food produced locally, organic food from Russia or other countries.
The objectives of this study are:
• to display the differences of country-of-origin perceptions towards organic food based on the region where Russian consumers live;
• to investigate shopping orientations through a factor analysis of responses to psychographic statements related to organic food shopping , and to identify consumer segments by clustering respondents by their scores across the shopping orientation;
• to profile each of the organic food shopping segments on the perception of domestic vs. foreign food images;
• to investigate how Russian consumers perceive organic baby food depending on country- of-origin;
• to formulate managerial implications for the companies to improve their marketing strategies for promoting the consumption of locally and nationally produced organic food, and to create a theoretical multidisciplinary model of the main factors affecting consumer behaviour in a food domain and to show the place of «origin» factor.
