Tenth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

We segment Indian millennial organic food consumers according to each consumer’s primary motivation for buying organic products. Prior research collectively reveals ten motivators for buying organic foods, repeatedly specifying two as the most common: the desire to live healthfully, and the desire to help the environment. A preliminary study confirms the dominance of the latter two motivators and adds a third, the desire for superior quality foods. These three are used in all subsequent analyses along with a fourth that is a composite of the other seven to reveal and profile segments according to their attitude toward organic foods.

Focus groups were used to identify the needs/benefit attributes of Indian millennial organic food consumers consider when purchasing. Thirteen such attributes were revealed and used in all subsequent analyses to address the question: are all Indian millennial consumers who buy organic products driven by these motivators in tandem, or do they define three respective consumer segments according to what drives each respective segment’s organic purchases?

We address this question by deriving the organic perceptual profiles of each set of organic millennial organics consumers according to their self reported primary motivators, and comparing them. The frequencies with which the above four major market segments of Indian millennial organic foods consumers were associated with these 13 organic product performance attributes were mapped onto a common, multidimensional space using correspondence analysis package, and their positions within the resulting attribute space are interpreted. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.