Consumption of organic strawberries in Italy: Demand analysis

Major changes have occurred in the agri-food sector in recent years, generating new and complex concepts of food quality. One of the most significant indicators of these changes is market restructuring, in terms of rapid concentration among retailers, the dominance of chain stores and their imposition of cost and quality constraints. To analyze this new aspect in the food sector, we carried out a survey on organic strawberry consumption. Interestingly, although the conventional strawberry may be considered unsafe, due to the widespread use of chemical inputs in the production process, the demand for organic strawberries remains fairly low. We attempted to investigate such concerns through a questionnaire-based survey. The data were analyzed using a Logit model to derive a demand estimate for organic strawberries. Our initial results indicate the presence of a major role played by large retailers and consumer lifestyles to drive the final demand.