Investigating the drivers that influence the adoption of differentiated food products The case of a Greek urban area

Purpose - Over the last years, food safety, health, environmental and societal issues are a few among many other reasons that force people to adopt new differentiated food products. This interesting shift of the consumption pattern from conventional food products to new differentiated products that incorporate innovative features, consist the main reasoning of the present study. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the drivers that influence the adoption of those differentiated food products and shed new light on consumer's behavior, by modeling and understanding better their attitude. Design/methodology/approach - A two-step cluster analysis was employed to explore the different levels of differentiated products adoption and a categorical regression model was estimated to explain this variation. Data were collected through a survey addressing 500 consumers, carried out in 2009 in a typical Greek urban area. Findings - From the three different food product categories (organic, functional and genetically modified) four consumers' profiles were identified which were found to differ in terms of several socioeconomic characteristics. The increased level of disposable income, along with exposure to innovative food products, may well explain such a differential food product adoption. Research limitations/implications - Due to the small sample, the indefinable number of food products adopters (population) and to specific characteristics of the study area consumers, the results might face generalisability deficiencies. Practical implications - From a practical point of view, to identify the reasons driving consumers to adopt or not new differentiated products with novelties is important generally for society, policy makers, food-producing companies and related economic sectors. Originality/value - The contribution of this research is in having examined, the adoption drivers of differentiated food product categories, for which there has been longstanding interest. The food product categories are examined comparatively as a group (organic, functional and genetically modified) and not individually.