IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v8y2016i9p833-d76501.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Significance of Consumer’s Awareness about Organic Food Products in the United Arab Emirates

Author

Listed:
  • Safdar Muhammad

    (Department of Agribusiness and Consumer Sciences, College of Food and Agriculture, United Arab Emirates University, P.O. Box 15551 Al Ain, UAE)

  • Eihab Fathelrahman

    (Department of Agribusiness and Consumer Sciences, College of Food and Agriculture, United Arab Emirates University, P.O. Box 15551 Al Ain, UAE)

  • Rafi Ullah Tasbih Ullah

    (Department of Agribusiness and Consumer Sciences, College of Food and Agriculture, United Arab Emirates University, P.O. Box 15551 Al Ain, UAE)

Abstract

Awareness about negative externalities generated by conventional farming is gaining momentum with consumers around the world, opting for alternatively, namely organically, produced food products. Information about consumers’ awareness is an essential element for farmers and marketing agencies to successfully plan production that can capture a greater market share. This study discusses effective factors influencing consumers’ awareness about the benefits of organic food in the United Arab Emirates. Sample data and ordinary least square (OLS) regression techniques are applied to delineate factors influencing consumers’ awareness about organic food. The results from this regression analysis highlight the importance of specific socioeconomic determinants that change awareness about organic food products in United Arab Emirates (UAE) households. This study finds that awareness about organic food is influenced more effective factors such as gender, nationality, and education as well as income, occupation and age. These research findings apply to other economies and societies that have an increasing per capita spending on organic food, but also where people are highly sensitive to information provided about organic food. Therefore, these results are important to these research beneficiaries including food marketing planners, researchers, and agricultural and food policy makers.

Suggested Citation

  • Safdar Muhammad & Eihab Fathelrahman & Rafi Ullah Tasbih Ullah, 2016. "The Significance of Consumer’s Awareness about Organic Food Products in the United Arab Emirates," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-12, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:8:y:2016:i:9:p:833-:d:76501
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/9/833/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/9/833/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gil, Jose Maria & Gracia, Azucena & Sanchez Garcia, Mercedes, 2000. "Market Segmentation And Willingness To Pay For Organic Products In Spain," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 3(2), pages 1-20.
    2. Meixner, Oliver & Haas, Rainer & Perevoshchikova, Yana & Canavari, Maurizio, 2014. "Consumer Attitudes, Knowledge, and Behavior in the Russian Market for Organic Food," International Journal on Food System Dynamics, International Center for Management, Communication, and Research, vol. 5(2), pages 1-11, October.
    3. Dettmann, Rachael L. & Dimitri, Carolyn, 2007. "Organic Consumers: A Demographic Portrayal of Organic Vegetable Consumption within the United States," 105th Seminar, March 8-10, 2007, Bologna, Italy 7899, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Briz, T. & Ward, R.W., 2009. "Consumer awareness of organic products in Spain: An application of multinominal logit models," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 295-304, June.
    5. Christoph Müller & Hansjörg Gaus, 2015. "Consumer Response to Negative Media Information About Certified Organic Food Products," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 38(4), pages 387-409, December.
    6. Meixner, Oliver & Haas, Rainer & Perevoshchikova, Yana & Canavari, Maurizio, 2014. "Consumer Attitudes, Knowledge and Behavior in the Russian Market of Food," 2014 International European Forum, February 17-21, 2014, Innsbruck-Igls, Austria 199363, International European Forum on System Dynamics and Innovation in Food Networks.
    7. Muhammad, Safdar & Fathelrahman, Eihab & Ullah, Rafi Ullah Tasbih, 2015. "Factors Affecting Consumers' Willingness to Pay for Certififed Organic Food Products in United Arab Emirates," Journal of Food Distribution Research, Food Distribution Research Society, vol. 46(1), pages 1-9, March.
    8. Athina-Evera Qendro, 2015. "Albanian and UK Consumers’ Perceptions of Farmers’ Markets and Supermarkets as Outlets for Organic Food: An Exploratory Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(6), pages 1-26, May.
    9. Dacinia Crina Petrescu & Ruxandra Malina Petrescu-Mag, 2015. "Organic Food Perception: Fad, or Healthy and Environmentally Friendly? A Case on Romanian Consumers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(9), pages 1-15, August.
    10. Zanoli, Raffaele & Naspetti, Simona, 2002. "Consumer motivations in the purchase of organic food. A means-end approach," MPRA Paper 32712, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Julia Wojciechowska-Solis & Anetta Barska, 2021. "Exploring the Preferences of Consumers’ Organic Products in Aspects of Sustainable Consumption: The Case of the Polish Consumer," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-17, February.
    2. Szymon Dziuba & Anna Cierniak-Emerych & Blanka Klímová & Petra Poulová & Piotr Napora & Sylwia Szromba, 2020. "Organic Foods in Diets of Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-17, February.
    3. Camelia F. Oroian & Calin O. Safirescu & Rezhen Harun & Gabriela O. Chiciudean & Felix H. Arion & Iulia C. Muresan & Bianca M. Bordeanu, 2017. "Consumers’ Attitudes towards Organic Products and Sustainable Development: A Case Study of Romania," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-14, September.
    4. Malkanthi, S.H. Pushpa & Rathnachandra, S.D. Dilini & Weerasinghe, W.A. Ruwani N., 2021. "Consumers’ Awareness on Organic Food: Case of Urban Sri Lanka," Problems of World Agriculture / Problemy Rolnictwa Światowego, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, vol. 21(4), December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Francisco José Torres-Ruiz & Manuela Vega-Zamora & Manuel Parras-Rosa, 2018. "False Barriers in the Purchase of Organic Foods. The Case of Extra Virgin Olive Oil in Spain," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-14, February.
    2. Camelia F. Oroian & Calin O. Safirescu & Rezhen Harun & Gabriela O. Chiciudean & Felix H. Arion & Iulia C. Muresan & Bianca M. Bordeanu, 2017. "Consumers’ Attitudes towards Organic Products and Sustainable Development: A Case Study of Romania," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-14, September.
    3. Jessica Aschemann-Witzel & Stephan Zielke, 2017. "Can't Buy Me Green? A Review of Consumer Perceptions of and Behavior Toward the Price of Organic Food," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(1), pages 211-251, March.
    4. Malkanthi, S.H. Pushpa & Rathnachandra, S.D. Dilini & Weerasinghe, W.A. Ruwani N., 2021. "Consumers’ Awareness on Organic Food: Case of Urban Sri Lanka," Problems of World Agriculture / Problemy Rolnictwa Światowego, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, vol. 21(4), December.
    5. Avitia, Jessica & Costa-Font, Montserrat & Gil, Jose Maria & Lusk, Jayson L. & Echeverria, Gemma, 2012. "The Role of sensory experience on Spanish consumer’s willingness to pay for sustainable produced food," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 126545, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    6. Vapa-Tankosic, Jelena & Ignjatijevic, Svetlana & Kranjac, Mirjana & Lekic, Snezana & Prodanovic, Radivoj, 2018. "Willingness to pay for organic products on the Serbian market," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 21(6), July.
    7. Seufert, Verena & Ramankutty, Navin & Mayerhofer, Tabea, 2017. "What is this thing called organic? – How organic farming is codified in regulations," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 10-20.
    8. Bryła Paweł, 2017. "Creating and Delivering Value for Consumers of Healthy Food – a Case Study of Organic Farma Zdrowia S.A," Journal of Management and Business Administration. Central Europe, Sciendo, vol. 25(4), pages 55-74, December.
    9. Owusu, Victor & Owusu, Michael Anifori, 2010. "Measuring Market Potential for Fresh Organic Fruit and Vegetable in Ghana," 2010 AAAE Third Conference/AEASA 48th Conference, September 19-23, 2010, Cape Town, South Africa 95955, African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE).
    10. Rodolfo Bernabéu & Margarita Brugarolas & Laura Martínez-Carrasco & Roberto Nieto-Villegas & Adrián Rabadán, 2023. "The Price of Organic Foods as a Limiting Factor of the European Green Deal: The Case of Tomatoes in Spain," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-15, February.
    11. Rana, Jyoti & Paul, Justin, 2017. "Consumer behavior and purchase intention for organic food: A review and research agenda," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 157-165.
    12. Owusu, Victor & Owusu Anifori, Michael, 2013. "Consumer Willingness to Pay a Premium for Organic Fruit and Vegetable in Ghana," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 16(1), pages 1-20, February.
    13. Grzelak, Paweł & Maciejczak, Mariusz, 2013. "Comparison of consumers' perceptions of organic products between the United States and Poland," Studies in Agricultural Economics, Research Institute for Agricultural Economics, vol. 115(1), pages 1-10, February.
    14. Fuchshofen, Nicolas & Hirsch, Darya & Brodtmann, Lilian Irene & Terlau, Wiltrud, 2018. "Production, Consumption and the Actor's Landscape in the Argentinean Organic Agricultural and Food Sector," International Journal on Food System Dynamics, International Center for Management, Communication, and Research, vol. 9(5), December.
    15. Tuncay Turan TARABOĞLU & Tuğba Nur TOPALOĞLU & Serdar YAMAN, 2019. "The Effects of Macroeconomic Indicators on Leveraged Forex Volume: Evidence from Turkey," Istanbul Business Research, Istanbul University Business School, vol. 48(2), pages 160-175, November.
    16. George Atanasoaie, 2012. "Price on the Organic Food Market," Annals of the University of Petrosani, Economics, University of Petrosani, Romania, vol. 12(4), pages 5-16.
    17. Evrim ERDOĞAN YAZAR & Murat BURUCUOĞLU, 2019. "Consumer Attitude towards Organic Foods: A Multigroup Analysis across Genders," Istanbul Business Research, Istanbul University Business School, vol. 48(2), pages 176-196, November.
    18. Sevtap ÜNAL & F. Görgün DEVECİ & Tuğba YILDIZ, 2019. "The main aim of this study is determining which consumption motives and personal and social factors affect organic food buying decisions. Ajzen’s Planned Behavior Theory (TPB) is used to explain consu," Istanbul Business Research, Istanbul University Business School, vol. 48(1), pages 1-35, May.
    19. Erifili Papista & Athanasios Krystallis, 2013. "Investigating the Types of Value and Cost of Green Brands: Proposition of a Conceptual Framework," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 115(1), pages 75-92, June.
    20. Sansern Srinieng & Gopal Bahadur Thapa, 2018. "Consumers’ Perception of Environmental and Health Benefits, and Consumption of Organic Vegetables in Bangkok," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 6(1), pages 1-17, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:8:y:2016:i:9:p:833-:d:76501. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.