INFORMED PRODUCT CHOICE IN THE ORGANIC FOOD SECTOR: FROM GUARANTEEING THE LEGAL RIGHTS TO FACING SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES

摘要

The reasoning of this study is the idea that the a priori condition for greening the food consumption is an informed product choice. The research aims at identifying if consumers can make an informed product choice using organic food label. A probabilistic survey on the Romanian consumers of organic food from the North West Development Region was carried on. This reveals that the label reading behaviour of tested consumers is largely adopted and strongly focused on health and product quality ingredients and expiration date were consulted by 55 and 69% of consumers, respectively. There is a statistically significant difference according to education level in the strength of beliefs concerning the truthfulness of the information on the organic food label (p < 0.05). Trust in organic food certification must be enhanced, as almost half of the respondents (44.3%) believe that not all the information on organic food labels is true and another high share (38.6%) does not know what to believe. One third (32.6%) of consumers uses the right criterion to identify organic food.