The attitude-behaviour-gap in organic meat consumption – development of recommendations

Abstract

There is no doubt, that the current industrial meat production and the high level of meat consumption lead to a number of serious negative impacts, including but not limited to environmental issues, animal abuse and a decline in biodiversity. Meat consumption has to be drastically reduced and the production conditions of meat have to change. Meat production has to become more sustainable, fair and environmentally friendly. One solution to move towards a more sustainable and ethically justifiable production of meat is the switch from a conventional meat production to an organic meat production. However, in order to make this switch, consumer behaviour has to change and a larger number of consumers has to buy organic meat instead of conventional meat. However, an analysis of the German organic food and meat market showed that the share of organic food in the total food and beverages market is still quite low. Even though the organic market has seen a huge growth in recent years, fueled by the Corona pandemic, the organic share in the food market is at only 6.8% in 2021. The market share of organic meat in the total meat market is even lower. Consumers oftentimes state to buy organic products. However, this does not reflect in their actual purchasing behaviour. This phenomenon is known as the attitude-behaviour-gap and can be witnessed not only in the organic meat market, but for the large number of ethical and sustainable products. In recent years a lot of research has focused on the attitude-behaviour-gap in organic food consumption and sustainable consumption. However, a critical review of the existing research literature revealed that here is little research specifically focusing on organic meat. This thesis therefore aimed to investigate the causes of the attitude-behaviour-gap in organic meat consumption in Germany and provide recommendations for German organic meat marketers. Therefore, based on theoretical considerations including the theory of planned behaviour by Ajzen, a model was developed to investigate the influence of the psychological factors attitude (towards the object and towards the behaviour), subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, perceived consumer effectiveness, perceived availability and moral norms. The empirical study aimed to find out to what degree each factor influences the behaviour intention to buy organic meat and which of those must be influenced in order to change consumer behaviour in organic meat consumption. The hypothesis was that the psychological factors mentioned in the extended TPB model influence the behaviour intention and consequently the actual consumer behaviour with regard to organic meat. Therefore, it should be possible to develop marketing strategies to influence these psychological factors in order to achieve an increased organic meat consumption. An online questionnaire was used in order to conduct this research. The results showed that the model is mostly supported by the data collected. Almost all tested psychological factors influence (to varying degrees) consumers’ intentions to purchase organic meat in the future. Only the factor perceived behavioral control showed little correlation with the participants’ behaviour intention. Particularly strong correlations were found between behaviour intentions and attitude towards the behaviour, perceived consumer effectiveness and moral norms. These factors need to be triggered and reinforced in order to increase organic meat consumption. Furthermore, it was found that environmental protection, animal welfare and an individual’s own health are important drivers of organic meat consumption. Based on these results, some marketing strategies and recommendations for marketers of organic meat were explained: Organic meat marketers should emphasize on the positive effects of organic meat consumption, which include environmental protection, animal welfare and health benefits. Positive messages should be used in marketing and advertising activities and consumers should be educated about the positive added value of organic meat consumption with concrete and tangible examples. Marketers should furthermore expand their offer in supermarkets and help consumers understand the price difference of organic and conventional meat. Nevertheless, all results of this thesis must be viewed with caution as there were notable limitations to the study. However, this thesis provides valuable insights for understanding the attitude-behaviour-gap in organic meat consumption and can act as a reference point for future research in this area. Future research should strive to confirm the findings of this thesis, correct its limitations, and test the applicability of marketing strategies recommended here in practice to contribute to increasing organic meat consumption in Germany.