Locavorism and its impact on consumers´ behavioral intentions towards food products

Abstract

To better understand consumers’ behavioral intentions related to local food products, the underlying research aims at investigating the impact of locavorism on consumers’ purchase intentions and willingness to pay. The study’s purpose is to identify the antecedents of locavorism in addition to its predictive effects on consumers’ intended behavior. Following a thorough review of extant literature presenting the concepts in question and their relationships, an online survey was conducted to (1) assess how consumers’ environmental attitudes, health consciousness and community attachment predict locavorism, (2) to analyze how locavorist mindsets predict consumers’ purchase intentions and willingness to pay for unlabelled and local-labelled food products, respectively, and (3) to uncover the mediating role of locavorism in the relationship between antecedents and consumers’ behavioural intentions. Results present two significant relationships among the variables, namely environmental attitudes positively predicting locavorism as well as locavorism positively predicting purchase intention for local food items. Thus, yielding the conclusion that consumers with strongly developed environmental attitudes are more likely to develop locavorist traits which, in turn, lead to a higher purchase intention for local food products.Whilst the findings support existing research on an academic level, additional managerial insights may also be deduced in the realm of adding to the understanding of the origin of consumers’ locavorist attitudes and their implications for intended purchase behaviours.

Date of Award	26 Apr 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Cláudia Simão (Supervisor)