Factors affecting consumers’ purchasing behaviour towards local foods in Greece: the case of the prefecture of Xanthi

This paper aims to identify the factors that affect consumers purchasing behaviour towards locally produced food in Greece and more precisely in the Prefecture of Xanthi. Field interviews conducted in a random selected sample consisted of 100 consumers in February of 2011. Multivariate statistical analysis performed to identify consumers behaviour toward local products. In particular, principal components analysis (PCA) was conducted in order to identify the factors that affect people in preferring locally produced food. The factors that influence people in the Prefecture of Xanthi to buy local food products are: (a) the topicality of the products, (b) quality and health issues, (c) appearance, (d) freshness and taste issues (e) curiosity and prestige. Furthermore, cluster analysis was employed to classify consumers with similar buying behaviour, and identified 2 groups of consumers: (a) those are influenced by curiosity, prestige and freshness of the product and (b) those are interested in the topicality of the product. Discriminant analysis was performed to assess how the identified factors derived from PCA could predict cluster membership. Non parametric statistical bivariate techniques were performed to profile the identified group of consumers regarding their personal characteristics and some other factors affecting their consuming behaviour.