Department
of Agricultural Economics, University of Kentucky (2017) 35 págs.
Abstract
The U.S.
organic food sector is rapidly increasing in the past decades and the organic
food marketing has thus draw substantial research interests. However, the
retailing sector, despite its key role in organic food marketing, is largely
left out of current discussion. In this article, we aim to bring the retailing
context back in organic food marketing research by examining whether consumer
preference for organic food can affect choice of retailing format with Nielsen
Homescan data in California. Our main findings are that regular organic user
households are more likely to patronage organic specialty store and discount
store whereas less likely to shop in warehouse club and the residual formats
comprised of convenience store, dollar store and drugstore. Price, consumer
loyalty and household shopping behavior also have the expected effects on
household retail format choice. This finding has strong managerial implication
for retailers and farmers. The current USDA programs in promoting organic
agriculture can also be improved by accounting for
organic
retailing.
Keywords:
organic, preference, retailing, store format, scanner data
