Eureka! Institutional Repository

According to the literature, the factors that influence the consumers’ attitude when choosing organic food are quality, price, and availability. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the factors that are likely to influence consumer behavior when it comes to choosing organic products. The attitudes and the limiting factors towards selecting organic products were examined using a random sample of 150 individuals from northern Greece, which was composed of 64.7% women and 35.3% men, the majority of which have studied in higher education. The research is based on primary data collection. Data was collected using a questionnaire, which was personally distributed to each participant and was filled-in on-the-spot. The statistical analysis of the data includes correlations and linear regression. According to the results and in contrast to the related literature, it is shown that the consumers’ attitudes towards organic products are not correlated with their gender, income or marital status. On the contrary, they appear to be related to the point of purchase of the products. Finally, the confirmation of the original hypotheses showed that: (a) the more the consumers consider organic products to be safe and healthy, the greater their intention to buy them is (Pearson’s ρ 0.627), (b) when producing organic products is more friendly to the environment, then the consumers’ intention of buying them increases (Pearson’s ρ 0.659) and (c) when the nutritional value of organic products is higher than that of the conventional ones, then the consumers’ purchase intention increases (Pearson’s ρ 0.575)