The case for food consumption is becoming complex. For most of modern history, food consumers have relied on industrially produced food. The main rational for mass producing food industrially has been to feed growing numbers of world's population. The recurring of food poisoning and media reports of harmful effects of pesticides and genetically modified food (GMF) coupled by emergence of environment conservation movements has spurred interest in what is now commonly referred to as organic food. Indeed, recent years have witnessed increasing conversion to organic food for different reasons. Moreover, influences external to consumer's decision-making process are being exercised as to "direct" her final purchase decision. One particular source of influence on organic food purchase is media. If anything, organic food could be partly perceived as a media construct given how organic food products are being advertized and marketed, particularly in favorable ways compared to conventional, industrially produced food. Historically, modern food has been advertized and marketed not only for profit ends but also for health goals. Understandably, consumers shift food consumption patterns in response to a complex set of environmental and lifestyle factors. Labeling and packaging, for that matter, has played a major role in reconnecting consumers to a specific, embedded message congruent to a particular consumption pattern in a broader framework of a specific cultural mood. Organic food is not different.
Boosted by global burgeoning environmental movements, organic food has come to be one newly discovered option to reconnect with nature and relinquish more harmful offerings. Further, in consuming organic food – consumers are advised by experts and producers – a consumer is helping support sustainable farming practices and local farmlands against conventional, profit-seeking food producers. Indeed, media and perception appear to play a major role in organic food consumption. If anything, major shifts in consumption come about by changing perception of (segmented) consumers. To adequately assess how organic food has come to be perceived as a "superior" food alternative, a deeper understanding of how organic food is presented to and received by consumers as natural and of nature. This discussion aims, hence, to highlight media consumption as main influence on organic food purchase decision.
The original assumption about organic food is centered on healthiness and safety. Indeed, of all messages organic food producers and advertisers have managed to inculcate in minds of consumers healthiness and safety come in first. The image has been so powerful as to obscure different, underlying messages. In more refined propositions, animal welfare has come to be considered for in opting in for organic food. In a paper based on a large-scale, empirical investigation into U.K. consumers' attitudes towards organic food, results show health and food safety concerns are main motives for organic food purchases but also ethical concerns based on applied standards for animal welfare (Harper and Makatouni). Understandably, food usually draws health and safety concerns. Thus, in promoting a healthy and safe food producers and advertisers are not only emphasizing an emerging conscious of "naturalness" but also developing sub-narratives of healthiness and safety manifest in food value chain, e.g. packaging, labeling, serving, storage, handling, etc. Thus, organic food's bigger narrative is co-created and co-developed at both ends of delivered message, sender and receiver.
Interestingly, organic food is not only consumed for utilitarian and ethical reasons. As noted, lifestyle is one factor which plays a major role in opting for organic food. This observation is confirmed by empirical studies. Tellingly enough, in a culture well known for connoisseurship and refined preferences, a study conducted on a representative sample of Italian population shows opting for organic food is associated with behaviors connected to specific lifestyles and organic food consumers are willing to accept higher costs (Pellegrini and Farinello). The case for organic food is, hence, not one noted for healthiness and safety only but, more significantly, a cultural contrast. More specifically, in promoting healthiness and safety organic food producers and advertisers are reconstructing what and how food should be consumed. The business of organic food is, hence, coupled by a reimagination of food culture in dichotomized form: organic (= healthy, safe and classy) and conventional (= unhealthy, unsafe and mass food). Unsurprisingly, in an exploratory study investigating underlying purchase decisions of organic food consumers are found to associate "organic" with "vegetables" and fruit" and a healthy diet with organic products (Padel and Foster). Moreover, decision-making process is shown to be complex given how differential decisions are depending on product category. There is not, apparently, a clear "cut-off" point by which organic and conventional foods can be differentiated based on empirical evidences of confirmed nutritional benefits or, conversely, health risks. Indeed, a growing body of literature shows mixed results of healthiness and safety of organic food. In a broad study conducted by Institute of Food Technologists, reasons to opt for organic food vary, as noted, to include perceived benefits to environment, animal welfare, worker safety and a general perception that organic foods are safer and more nutritious (Winter and Davis). From a production and farming practice perspective, organic food has been shown as well to not be as particularly safe compared to conventional food. That is, if organic fruits and vegetables rely on limited pesticides compared to conventional fruits and vegetables, lack of chemical pesticides may stimulate development of naturally occurring toxins from insects, weeds or plant diseases. Thus, by celebrating organic food in advertising and media campaigns as particularly healthy compared to conventional food constructs – rather than presents – an image of a food variety which is partly in consumers' minds and not actually present.
In a broader context, food – of whatever variety – has always been advertised and marketed by different means in order to lure consumers into final purchase decisions. Most notably, one particular feature appears to be recurring in at least all modern food promoting and marketing efforts, i.e. appeal. By "appeal" is meant emphasizing specific qualities in produced food as to persuade consumers into preference and final purchase decision. The appeal, in present case, comes in different forms, not least visual.
As has consistently been emphasized, organic food has emerged as a new breed of healthy and safe food, a concept which is particularly noted in food marketing literature (Hill and Lynchehaun). Given lack of decisive evidence as to organic food's superiority to conventional food, one can but wonder whether organic food is, after all, a cognitive construct and a rear door from which big businesses access broader market shares using marketing strategies. The argument for organic food as a construct (vis-à-vis an actual offering) of perceived benefits gains more credibility when lifestyle message is factored in. That is, in willing to pay more for a food product marketed mainly as healthy and safe (and accompanied by messages of "classiness") in light of any clear evidence of nutritional benefits consumers are, in fact, subscribing to an order which has only been refined by producers and advertisers.
In a broader context still, connecting to nature has been promoted in recent decades by different means and across diverse media platforms. For current purposes, food has historically been promoted as a particularly one assured access to healthy life but also more significantly as an elixir of restorative powers. The message of naturalness has been, in fact, customized as to speak to each segment's needs and underling desires. For instance, in delivering a message to older consumers organic food is promoted as a "preserver" of health and, combined by adequate physical exercise, could restore a "fresh look" and prolong one's life. For younger consumers, however, a regular intake of organic food is assumed to relieve stress, eliminate fatigue and, not least, to enhance physical endurance. Indeed, in an age noted for "staying in shape" and "aging well" messages emphasizing healthiness and safety in promoting organic food cannot be overemphasized.
Further, perceived harms – mainly health – in conventional, mass-produced and industrial foods have spurred interest in organic food as a potential alternative. True, no perceived benefits are noted for organic food. However, humans do not consume products – food products included – for perceived benefits alone. The metaphor embedded in organic food of reconnecting to nature and restoring, so to speak, a prime state of affairs is so powerful as to engage consumers and secure loyalty. Indeed, marketing and advertising efforts implemented across different media platforms continue to show consumers of not only food products are more apt to consume a product as long as product addresses a most basic need – or, for that matter, a longing – in one's repertoire. To address a longing for healthiness and safety cannot, in fact, be overemphasized in delivering organic food messages.
The modern food consumption habits are, indeed, different. Compared to more conventional forms of delivering food industrially, organic food promotion shows unprecedented sophistication both in message delivery and consumption. Paradoxically, in an age when automation is replacing production means across different industries organic food is being promoted decidedly as a product of non-industrialized efforts across all value chain. Likewise, organic food is consumed not only as a healthier and safer variant of more conventional foods but also as a lifestyle option. That is, notwithstanding higher costs organic food consumers are willing to pay more in order to project an image of classiness. If anything, food consumption in modern life has come to be integral to a far broader scheme of life arrangement and not only for subsistence purposes.
Works Cited
Harper, C. Gemma, and Aikaterini Makatouni. "Consumer perception of organic food production and farm animal welfare." British Food Journal 104. 3/4/5 (2002): 287 – 299. Emerald Insight. Web. 14 Jul. 2015.
Hill, Helen, and Fidelma Lynchehaun. "Organic milk: attitudes and consumption patterns." British Food Journal 104.7 (2002): 526 – 542. Emerald Insight. Web. 14 Jul. 2015.
Padel, Susanne, and Carolyn Foster. "Exploring the gap between attitudes and behaviour: Understanding why consumers buy or do not buy organic food." British Food Journal 107.8 (2005): 606 – 625. Emerald Insight. Web. 14 Jul. 2015.
Pellegrini, Giuseppe, and Federica Farinello. "Organic consumers and new lifestyles: An Italian country survey on consumption patterns." British Food Journal 111.9 (2009): 948 – 974. Emerald Insight. Web. 14 Jul. 2015.
Winter, K. Carl, and Sarah F. Davis. "Organic Foods." Journal of Food Science 71.9 (2006): R117–R124. Wiley Online Library. Web. 14 Jul. 2015.
