Abstract: Background and Objective: Thailand is becoming a key participant in the global production of organic food products. As such, the objectives of this study were to examine the antecedents and consequences of Thai consumer attitudes toward local organic food products and to segment these consumers using their food-related lifestyle (FRL) patterns, attitudes and perceived values. Materials and Methods: This research employed quantitative methods and use of a 72 item questionnaire to collect data from 400 Thai organic food consumers in the first half of 2018. SPSS software version 21 was used to conduct a cluster analysis and discriminant analysis and then analyze the frequencies, percentage, mean and standard deviation. Results: From the segmentation into three organic food consumer groups, which included sensory organic eaters (Group 1), organic eaters (Group 2) and unhealthy conventional organic eaters (Group 3), it was determined that an organic food product’s quality aspect had the greatest importance across all three groups. However, a consumer’s attitude concerning their emotional value was judged to have the least importance across all three groups when purchasing organic food products (OFP). Conclusion: From the analysis of the three groups of Thai organic food consumers, the sensory organic eaters (SOEs = Group 1) and the organic eaters (Oes = Group 2) were highly sensitive and had nearly the same attributes to each other. Perceived value, attitude and food-related lifestyle were also shown to be helpful in separating the unhealthy conventional organic eaters (UCOEs = Group 3) for marketing purposes. Finally, consumers of organic food products in all three groups placed a very high value on sanitary and phytosanitary conditions.
INTRODUCTION
In the 2018 ‘World of Organic Agriculture (WOA)’ study, it was reported that there were over 2.7 million producers of organic products worldwide, which is a 12.8% increase1 over 2015. In the 178 countries which are reported to be involved in organic production, over 57.8 million ha were being used for farmland, which represented a 15% increase over 2015.
Furthermore, the WOA study indicated that in 2016, organic products sold globally were valued at $US90 billion and that areas of cultivation for organic products had reached1 97.5 million ha.
Although Oceania is also a huge region, in fact Australia is home to over 99% of the organic land used within it (Fig. 1). In 2016, there were 27,000 Australian organic producers, which used 27.3 million ha of land in their production1. Even though China is massive in both landmass and population, only 2.3 million ha were being used for organic production in 2016. However, this was a 42% increase over 2015 statistics1,2. India, however, has the most organic producers globally3 with 835,000.
Thailand in Southeast Asia has also been influenced by the global expansion of the organic food market. As reported elsewhere, media and advertising have a significant impact on a consumer’s perception of organic related products. Further research from Thailand has stated that in order to enlarge the organic market, one must understand consumers’ preferences for organic products and the premium they will pay for them4,5.
As global organic product markets rapidly expand, research is showing that organic food consumption growth is related to the lack of harmful and non-toxic substances within the products6,7. Also important, is the products should contain vitamins, minerals and vegetable nutrients expected of such products. Studies have also shown that consumers recognize that organic foods are safe, valuable and beneficial and as such are willing to pay more4,7,8.
In Asia, studies have suggested that consumer concerns about food safety and quality have been the main motivators for consumer organic product purchases9. Chinese market expansion in the past decade is partly because of the high incidence of food scares, with the melamine scandal involving dairy products and infant formula adulterated with the industrial chemical, having the most impact. China now has the largest market for organic infant formula products in the world, worth almost $USD 200 million.
Organic products are also a niche market, with research indicating that Thai consumers are attracted most to organic vegetables, fruits and rice, respectively4,10. As a main purpose of consumption is to keep healthy, one of the first factors to consider when buying organic products is the quality of the products11.
| Fig. 1: | Global organic farmland-20161 |
| Table1: | Nomenclature research variables’ supporting theory |
This is consistent with 2015 research in which Thai organic food purchasers paid a premium price of 88, 51 and 51% for organic Chinese kale, organic jasmine rice and organic pork, respectively4.
Attitude is also an important consideration in the analysis of consumer behavior12. Another is value perception as it helps researchers determine the extent of their consumption more effectively13.
Food-related lifestyle (FRL) is also used as a tool to measure attitudes toward food consumption14. The work of the FRL tool is done by incorporating several related factors into smaller groups and for clarity in behaviors in different groups. It also relates a set of products to a set of values14 and helps keeps responses focused on a unique target audience15. With this approach, FRL tools are popular in applying consumer attitudes and behaviors that reflect the individual's daily lives. European developed FRL for research concerning Chinese food culture consumers15 and determined there were four distinct segments. Food segmentation is also determined to be based on FRL, with food consumers grouped in a variety of ways.
Similarly, perceived value (PV) is a form of expression of satisfaction and shared interest that can be categorized13. The PV of a customer's food products leads to purchasing behavior and food consumption. Also, basic emotions provide more information about the feelings of the consumer over and above positive and negative affect16. This includes the way a food stimulates the feelings or interests of a customer to choose each type of food depending on their lifestyle16. Furthermore, in Scandinavian research which used FRL as a research instrument as it is geared towards market surveillance in the food industry. It is also rooted in the cognitive approach to explain human behaviour and the main assertion is that life style is how consumers mentally link products to the attainment of life values17.
For this reason, the objective of this study was to observe the lifestyle patterns associated with food, including attitude and perceived value. Furthermore, the study sought to segment Thai organic food consumers (OFCs) to better understand their attitudes and perceived values concerning organic food products. The variables in this study developed from the literature and theory (Table 1), focused on food-related-lifestyle, attitude and perceived value by Thai OFCs.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Measurements: This study’s questionnaire was divided into six parts, which contained a total of 72-items. A Likert type agreement scale was used, which ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Table 1 showed the latent and observed variables along with their supporting theory.
Sampling and data collection: The study examined Thai OFCs 15 years or older for a period of 6 months in 2018. The sample size was calculated by use of the Cochran formula28 and found that an appropriate sample for the study with an error reserve of 4% to be 384.16 individuals. Therefore, a target sample size of 400 Thai OFCs was determined. The sampling method used multi-stage, random sampling.
Statistical analysis: Cluster analysis and discriminant analysis were analyzed by use of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 21. Combined cluster and discriminant analysis is a method of which idea is to compare random grouping with preconceived grouping29. From this, the frequencies, percentage, the mean and standard deviations (SD) were calculated30.
| Table 2: | Organic food consumer opinion scale |
| Table 3: | Organic food consumer characteristics |
Research tool: For queries that were designed to determine the value of the item comments, a 7-level Likert scale is often used31, with level 1 representing an answer which ‘I strongly disagree’ with the item’s statement, to level 7, which was interpreted as an item statement in which the passenger ‘I strongly agree’ (Table 2).
Therefore, Table 2 showed the study’s scale and values used in the organic food products questionnaire which contained a total of 72 items. Part 1 consisted of Table 3, six items detailing the personal characteristics of each consumer, along with Table 4’ results of the five items detailing the respondent’s organic food consumption behavior (11 total).
| Table 4: | Organic food consumption behavior |
The remainder of the survey consisted of three sections concerning the consumer’s organic food related lifestyles (FRL = 24 items), attitude (A = 12 items) and perceived value (PV = 25 items).
Cluster analysis: The study used cluster analysis to group similar objects in such a way that objects in the same group (a cluster) are more similar to each other than to those in other groups32. K-means cluster analysis is a method of cluster analysis which aims to partition observations into k clusters, in which each observation belongs to the cluster with the nearest mean33.
Discriminant analysis: Discriminant analysis is a collection of multivariate techniques that use statistical methods to characterize or separate two or more classes of objects or events34. From the cluster method, the researchers conducted discriminant analysis starting with Box’s M test, which is one of the commonly used methods to test homogeneity of variance-covariance matrices of groups35.
RESULTS
Target group’s characteristics: From the respondent’s personal information contained in the 72 item questionnaire collected from 400 Thai organic food consumers in the first half of 2018, it was determined that the majority were female (61%) and single (58%) (Table 3). It was also interesting to note that the high level of consumer education as 59.8% had a Bachelor’s degree, while an additional 17.7% had a Postgraduate degree.
Organic food consumption behavior: Furthermore, results from the 400 Thai organic food consumers showed that 43.8% of the Thai OFCs preferred vegetables (Table 4). Additionally, 35% of the respondents indicated that they ate organic food 1-2 times per week, with 28.7% reporting they ate organic foods to stay healthy. Additionally, 39.8% reported they bought organic food from the supermarket. Finally, 36.0% trusted organic food if some form of guarantee label was provided on the packaging.
Food related lifestyle (FRL), attitude and perceived value of organic food: Reliability (Cronbach’s alpha), means and standard deviations of the 5-items from food-related lifestyles were used in the analysis. Ranked in importance, results showed that consumers felt that FRL quality aspects were most important at level 6’s ‘I agree’. This was followed by cooking methods. A consumers way of shopping, purchasing motives and finally, consumption situations.
Consumer’s attitude (A) was evaluated using three variables. Ranked in importance, these were healthy, the environment and sanitary and phytosanitary.
Perceived value (PV) consisted of five items. Ranked in importance, these were the organic food product’s functional value, emotional value, epistemic value, economic value and social value.
From the results presented in Table 5, it was determined that the mean differences in separation were substantial, with statistical significance being less than 0.05. Purchasing motives (PM) was found to have the highest value (F = 233.146) followed by ways of shopping (WS) (F = 223.127) and social value (F = 210.221). Furthermore, the organic food consumer respondents held a positive opinion concerning FRL consumption behavior. Concerning the consumer’s attitude (A) and perceived value (PV), both were viewed as positive elements.
Cluster analysis results: The analysis classified Thai OFCs by using K-means techniques for more than 200 individuals by more iteration and every iterations mix case to calculate average. This study found the average to be stable at 11 iterations. Furthermore, the results of hierarchical cluster analysis suggested that the number of groups was three.
Discriminant analysis results: The Fig. 2 showed the group mean differences and the conical discriminant linear functions.
| Table 5: | FRL, A and PV analysis results of Thai organic food consumers (n = 400) |
| Table 6: | Structure matrix and classification function coefficients |
| *Largest absolute correlation between each variable and any discriminant function. Con. = Constant, WS: Ways of shopping, QA: Quality aspects, CM: Cooking methods, CS: Consumption situations, H: Healthy, SP: Sanitary and phytosanitary, E: Environment, FV: Functional value, EPV: Epistemic value, EMV: Emotional value, SV: Social value, ECV: Economic value | |
| Fig. 2: | Canonical discriminant functions, Blue: Group/cluster 1, Green: Group/cluster 2 and Yellow: Group/cluster 3 |
| Black squares indicate group center mark | |
Classification results of the individual contribution of the variables to the discriminant functions and their classification was divided into three groups or clusters of Thai OFCs. In Group 1, 159 of 162 respondents were classified as sensory organic eaters. In Group 2, 150 out of the 159 respondents were classified as organic eaters. In Group 3, 81 out of the 82 respondents were classified as unhealthy conventional organic eaters.
Thai organic consumer prediction model: Results from the discriminant analysis revealed that two canonical discriminant linear functions were significant at p<0.001. Furthermore, in Table 6, the structure matrix showed purchasing motives (PM) is meaningful for choosing organic food, which has the strongest correlation with Function 1. As this was compatible with this function, it was labeled as a FRL element.
Furthermore, under Function 2’s (Fun. 2) attitude (A), consumers voiced their strong opinions that consuming organic food is healthy. By using the classification function coefficients shown in Table 6, three classification scores were calculated for creating the grouping.
DISCUSSION
From the review of the literature and theory, the study on Thai OFCs determined that there were three classifications of organic food consumers (OFCs). These were sensory organic eaters (SOEs = Group 1), organic eaters (Oes = Group 2) and unhealthy conventional organic eaters (UCOEs = Group 3).
This was consistent with research from Nie and Zepeda36which stated that consumer segmentation is helpful in understanding the attitudes and motivations of specific consumers, rather than learning how an average consumer thinks and behaves. Furthermore, Nie and Zepada’s36 research segmented food consumers based on their lifestyle, which is a mixture of habits, conventional ways of doing things and reasoned behavior, which included four consumer segments labeled as practical consumer, food enthusiast, indifferent consumer and convenience seeker.
Moreover, the results also reflect the importance of a consumer’s focus on environmental and health issues which have become a fundamental requirement within the organic product sector11,37. The results are also consistent with Uimonen38, which also examined Finnish food consumers and discussed the adventurous, careless, conservative, rational, snacking and the uninvolved consumers.
The popular iterative partitioning method k-means clustering method was also used in this study, which was adopted from Hartigan and Wong39. Also, from the discriminant analysis and classification scores from the three consumer groups, the following determinations were made.
In all three groups of organic food consumers, the quality aspects (QA) was judged to be most important. These findings were also consistent with Uimonen‘s Finnish consumer food study in which quality was consistently voiced as a main concern in food selection38.
It was also interesting to discover that consumers of organic food products in all three groups placed a very high value on sanitary and phytosanitary (SP) conditions. This is supported by other global studies on organic food products value coming from safe and sanitary assurance4-9. However, in all three groups, a consumer’s emotional value (EMV) concerning the purchase and consumption of organic foods was determined to be the lowest of the items evaluated.
CONCLUSION
The results of this study demonstrated the possibility of organic consumer segmentation through attitude, perceived value and food-related-lifestyle. Furthermore, the study showed that personality and social influence can drive consumption choice through lifestyle, while attitudes and perceived value determine the benefits (or lack thereof) of organic food products.
SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT
This study discovered that organic food products are increasingly becoming a food resource which Asian and Thai food consumers are both looking for and willing to pay higher prices for. Specifically, research has identified that both Thai and Asian consumers are looking for products which are clean and free of contaminants, which has become the outcome of high-profile incidents related to food contamination. This study therefore will help other researchers uncover and identify critical areas for follow-on research that previous scholars did not explore. Thus, new theories on what importance is placed on organic food consumption may be arrived at.