Michaelidou and Hassan, "The Role of Health Consciousness, Food Safety Concern and Ethical Identity on Attitudes and Intentions Towards Organic Food"

The role of health consciousness, food safety concernand ethical identity on attitudes and intentions towardsorganic foodNina Michaelidou1 and Louise M. Hassan2

1University of Birmingham, Birmingham Business School, University House, Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK2University of Stirling and the Open University, Institute for Social Marketing, University of Stirling, Stirling, Scotland, UK

Keywords

Organic foods, health consciousness, foodsafety, ethical self-identity, structural equationmodelling, rural consumers.

Correspondence

Nina Michaelidou, University of Birmingham,Birmingham Business School, UniversityHouse, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.E-mail: [email protected]

doi: 10.1111/j.1470-6431.2007.00619.x

AbstractThe paper examines the roles of health consciousness, food safety concern and ethicalself-identity in predicting attitude and purchase intention within the context of organicproduce. A conceptual model is derived and tested via structural equation modelling.Findings indicate food safety as the most important predictor of attitude while healthconsciousness appears to be the least important motive in contrast to findings from someprevious research. In addition, ethical self-identity is found to predict both attitudes andintention to purchase organic produce, emphasizing that respondents’ identification withethical issues affects their attitude and subsequent consumption choices.

BackgroundThe organic food market has grown substantially over recent yearsacross the globe (Lockie et al., 2004; Padel and Foster, 2005;Gifford and Bernard, 2006). Several reasons have been proposedwithin the literature, from studies in the UK, Europe, Australia andNorth America, for this move towards purchasing organic produce.These include: a concern for health (Tregear et al., 1994; Wandeland Bugge, 1997; Grankvist and Biel, 2001; Magnusson et al.,2001, 2003; Lockie et al., 2002); ethical, moral, political or reli-gious motives (McEachern and McClean, 2002; Honkanen et al.,2006); the quality or safety of conventional food produce(Williams and Hammit, 2001; Makatouni, 2002; Baker et al.,2004; Gifford and Bernard, 2006); environmental considerations(Sparks and Shepherd, 1992; Grunert and Juhl, 1995; Schiffersteinand Oude Ophuis, 1998; Laroche et al., 2001; Vindigni et al.,2002; Lockie et al., 2004); and personal values (Dreezens et al.,2005; Lea and Worsley, 2005).

These reasons are often themed by existing literature into twobroad categories (e.g. Wandel and Bugge, 1997; Padel and Foster,2005) consisting of individual or health (egoistic) and environ-mental or animal welfare (altruistic) motives. First, consumersperceive organic produce as a healthier alternative to conventionalfoods in that they contain more nutrients (Tregear et al., 1994;Magnusson et al., 2001; Baker et al., 2004; Lockie et al., 2004;

Lea and Worsley, 2005; Padel and Foster, 2005) which enhancepersonal well-being (Williams and Hammit, 2001). Organicproduce is also considered safer (Schifferstein and Oude Ophuis,1998; Padel and Foster, 2005), better in taste and more enjoyablethan conventional produce (Roddy et al., 1996; Zanoli andNaspetti, 2002; Fotopoulos et al., 2003; Baker et al., 2004).Second, environmental sensitivity and animal welfare have alsobeen found to motivate the purchase of organic produce (Schiffer-stein and Oude Ophuis, 1998; Vindigni et al., 2002; Magnussonet al., 2003).

Research has also focused on examining the effects of motives,beliefs and values on attitudes towards organic produce, purchaseintentions and/or purchase frequency, reporting mixed results (e.g.Magnusson et al., 2003, 2001; Padel and Foster, 2005; Honkanenet al., 2006). For example, Magnusson et al. (2003) found healthto be the stronger predictor of attitude and purchase intentiontowards organic foods compared with environmental motives. Incontrast, Honkanen et al. (2006) found that environmental andanimal motives have a strong influence on attitude. Similarly,previous studies indicate health to be the predominant motive forpurchasing organic food and shaping attitude (Schifferstein andOude Ophuis, 1998); however, Tarkiainen and Sundqvist (2005)refute health as a predictor of attitude towards organic foods.

Further, Baker et al. (2004) found discrepancies in the motivesexplaining attitude towards organic foods between UK and

International Journal of Consumer Studies ISSN 1470-6423

International Journal of Consumer Studies 32 (2008) 163–170 © The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 163

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German consumers. In addition to these conflicting findings,extant research has focused on examining specific motives andtheir effect on purchase intention and frequency (e.g. Magnussonet al., 2003; Tarkiainen and Sundqvist, 2005) omitting others, suchas food safety, and their role as predictors of attitude and intention.Similarly, the role of ethical self-identity as an antecedent toattitude and intention has not been explored in the context oforganic purchases despite its contribution in predicting attitudeand intention in similar contexts (Sparks and Shepherd, 1992;Shaw and Clarke, 1999; Shaw and Shiu, 2002a).

These gaps in the literature highlight that our understanding ofthe role of motives that underlie attitude and intention towardsorganic produce is still underdeveloped (Newsom et al., 2005).This study contributes to understanding the motives behind thepurchase of organic produce by clarifying the roles of healthconsciousness, food safety concern and ethical self-identity inpredicting attitude and intention. In particular, we focus on healthconsciousness in an attempt to clarify its value in predicting atti-tude and purchase intention towards organic produce, given theconflicting findings reported in the literature (e.g. Magnussonet al., 2003; Tarkiainen and Sundqvist, 2005). Concurrently, weattempt to clarify the role of food safety concern and ethicalself-identity in shaping attitude and intention, which have beenomitted in the context of organic food purchase. We thereforesimultaneously model health consciousness, food safety concernand ethical self-identity together with an attitude to intention rela-tionship. The following section discusses the research hypotheses.The methodology is then addressed and findings are presented. Adiscussion follows with implications for future research.

Development of research hypotheses

Health consciousness

Health consciousness assesses the readiness to undertake healthactions (Becker et al., 1977). Health-conscious consumers areaware and concerned about their state of well-being and are moti-vated to improve and/or maintain their health and quality of life, aswell as preventing ill health by engaging in healthy behaviours andbeing self-conscious regarding health (Gould, 1988; Plank andGould, 1990; Kraft and Goodell, 1993; Newsom et al., 2005).Such individuals tend to be aware of, and involved with, nutritionand physical fitness (Kraft and Goodell, 1993). Previous researchhas identified interest in health as a primary motive for the pur-chase of organic food (Grankvist and Biel, 2001; Lockie et al.,2002). In addition, health consciousness has been found to predictattitude, intention and purchase of organic foods (Magnussonet al., 2003, 2001). Furthermore, as organic produce buyers aremore aware that food intake does affect their health, they appre-ciate healthy and natural foods and are more willing to choosehealthier foods to improve their health (Schifferstein and OudeOphuis, 1998). Although the relationship between health con-sciousness and attitude has not been uniformly supported in allstudies (Tarkiainen and Sundqvist, 2005), on balance we nonethe-less hypothesize that:

H1a: Health consciousness will positively affect attitudetowards organic produce;H1b: Health consciousness will positively affect purchaseintention of organic produce.

Ethical self-identity

An ethical or green consumer is ecologically conscious and tendsto buy products that are environmentally friendly and not harmfulto the environment or society (Laroche et al., 2001; Harper andMakatouni, 2002). Ethical motives have been found to affectdemand for organic foods. Such motives include concerns overthe environment, the threat to animals, the threat to human life,and the publicity over the heightened use of genetically modifiedcrops fed to animals (Hartman and Wright, 1999; McEachernand McClean, 2002). In addition, Magnusson et al. (2003) andHonkanen et al. (2006) found that ethical motives explain attitudeand purchase intention regarding organic produce. However,ethical motives may lead to empathy and the subsequent formationof positive attitudes towards ethical issues (e.g. animal welfare),resulting in ethical consumption choices (Shaw and Shiu, 2002b).

In this sense, ethical motives may become part of the consum-ers’ self-identity (Shaw et al., 2000). Self-identity is defined as thepertinent part of an individual’s self that relates to a particularbehaviour (Conner and Armitage, 1998) and has been found toaffect attitude and intention in the purchase of fair-trade groceries(Shaw and Shiu, 2002a,b, 2003). In our context, we believe thatthe purchase of organic produce may be an expression of ethicalbeliefs, and therefore we hypothesize that:

H2a: Ethical self-identity will positively affect attitudetowards organic produce;H2b: Ethical self-identity will positively affect purchaseintention of organic produce.

Food safety concern

Buyers of organic produce are equally concerned about the physicalrisks involved in the consumption of foods (Verbeke and Viaene,1999; Brom, 2000; Williams and Hammitt, 2000; Zanoli and Nas-petti, 2002; Angulo et al., 2003; Yee et al., 2005). Food safetyrepresents consumers’ concern regarding residues in food resultingfrom chemical sprays, fertilizers, artificial additives and preserva-tives, which is often linked to farming methods (Yee et al., 2005).

Although food safety incorporates other elements, such asmicrobiological safety and animal disease-related safety issues(e.g. bovine spongiform encephalopathy, foot and mouth, etc.), thescarce research on food safety in the context of organic foodconceptualizes food safety in terms of pesticide residues, hor-mones and natural toxins (e.g. Canavari et al., 2002; Honkanenet al., 2006). Consumers seem to think of food safety in terms ofadditives, chemicals and preservatives in vegetables, fruits andprocessed foods, which represent a constant safety issue in foodproduction as opposed to animal disease-related safety (e.g. birdflu, etc.), which is seldom mentioned in the media.

Further, Williams and Hammitt (2001) find that consumersbelieve organically grown produce poses fewer risks to consumersthan conventional food produce. Specifically, respondents believethat lower-pesticide-related mortality risks are associated with theconsumption and production of organically grown produce. Simi-larly, Schifferstein and Oude Ophuis (1998) find that organicproduce buyers are concerned about the safety of foods and thatthey are willing to pay a premium for such produce (Krystalliset al., 2006). In a related study concerning the purchase ofvalue-based fresh meat products, McEachern and Schroder (2004)

Organic foods and consumers’ consumption N. Michaelidou and L.M. Hassan

164 International Journal of Consumer Studies 32 (2008) 163–170 © The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

find that views on meat safety have a role in shaping attitude,perception of difficulties in terms of labelling, and purchasebehaviour.

Despite food safety being highlighted by previous literature as amotive for purchasing organic food (e.g. Schifferstein and OudeOphuis, 1998; Baker et al., 2004; Padel and Foster, 2005), itsrelationship with attitude and intention towards organic foods isyet to be formally tested. We believe that food safety will likely bean important predictor of attitude and purchase intention towardsorganic produce, and hypothesize that:

H3a: Food safety concern will positively affect attitudetowards organic produce;H3b: Food safety concern will positively affect purchaseintention of organic produce.

Attitude and Intention

In line with the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen and Fishbein,1980; Ajzen, 1991), attitude has been shown to have strongcorrelational relationships with behaviour and behaviouralintention in multiple contexts (e.g. Sparks et al., 1995; Kalafatiset al., 1999; Shaw et al., 2000; Shaw and Shiu, 2002a; Choo et al.,2004). In the context of organic food purchases, Magnusson et al.(2001, 2003) and Tarkiainen and Sundqvist (2005) find attitude toexplain purchase intention. In line with this research, we hypoth-esize that:

H4: Attitude towards organic produce will positively affectpurchase intention.The aforementioned hypotheses are graphically represented via

the conceptual model (Fig. 1). This model depicts health con-sciousness, ethical self-identity and food safety concern as ante-cedents of attitude towards organic produce. Attitude towardsorganic produce and ethical self-identity are predicted to be ante-cedents of intention.

MethodologyData were collected from a convenience sample of consumers fromthe Island of Arran in Scotland during December 2003 based on aself-completion questionnaire. The Island of Arran has over 5000inhabitants and one main town with several villages and hamlets.The Island has one main supermarket and a collection of smallerretail outlets. A regular ferry service runs from the main town of

Brodick to the mainland (Scotland), and the journey lasts approxi-mately one hour. The self-completion questionnaire was adminis-tered in several locations around the Island, including at the majorsupermarket. In addition, a large number of participants wererecruited on the ferry, with the researcher using filter questions toonly recruit participants who live on the Island. Where possible, theresearcher selected every fifth person leaving the main supermarketand approached as many people on the ferry crossings as possible.The researcher approached consumers on both crossings from themainland and crossings to the mainland on four separate occasions.Overall, 222 complete and usable questionnaires were obtained.The sample comprises 159 (72%) women, where the majority(73%) of the sample was the main purchasers of food for theirhousehold, with most of the sample in employment (82%). Aroundone-third of the sample have dependents aged under 16 years livingat home, with 68% married or living with a partner. The respon-dents’ age ranged from 15 to over 65 years.

The survey instrument is based on prior literature with attitudeand intention measures developed as recommended by Ajzen(1991), while ethical self-identity was adapted from Shaw and Shiu(2003). The measure of food safety concern was adapted frommeasures contained in Roddy et al. (1996), and health conscious-ness was measured using the scale developed by Gould (1988).Appendix 1 gives details of the questionnaire measures used.

Results

Reliability and validity

Table 1 provides Cronbach alpha values for the scales andexploratory factor analysis results. The alpha values are all abovethe recommended level of 0.7 (Hair et al., 1998). In addition,exploratory factor analysis for each scale revealed that each con-struct is unidimensional with over 50% of the variance explainedand the scree plots indicating one dominant factor for each scale.Table 2 provides means and standard deviations of the scales, aswell as correlations between the constructs. A confirmatoryfactor analysis (CFA) was undertaken yielding excellent fit(c2 = 51.341, d.f. = 44, P-value = 0.208, Tucker Lewis Index(TLI) = 0.995, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.996, Root MeanSquare Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = 0.027, AkaikeInformation Criterion (AIC) = 119.341) according to the usual

Health Consciousness

Ethical Self Identity

FoodSafety Concern

Attitude toward Organic Purchase

Intention

H1a

H2a

H3a

H1b

H2b

H3b

H4

Figure 1 Conceptual model.

N. Michaelidou and L.M. Hassan Organic foods and consumers’ consumption


conventions (Carmines and McIver, 1981; Hu and Bentler,1999). All paths within the CFA model are significant(P < 0.001).

Structural model analysis

The conceptual model was then analysed to determine whetherattitudes mediate the relationship between food safety concern,health consciousness, ethical self-identity and intention. Accord-ing to Baron and Kenny (1986) and Holmbeck (1997), four con-ditions must hold in a test of mediating effects: (1) the predictorvariables (food safety concern, health consciousness and ethicalself-identity) significantly impact the mediator (attitude) in theexpected direction; (2) the mediator (attitude) significantlyimpacts the dependent construct (intention) in the expected direc-tion; (3) the predictor variables (food safety concern, health con-sciousness and ethical self-identity) significantly impact thedependent construct (intention) in the expected direction; and (4)after controlling for the effects of the mediator (attitude), theimpact of the predictor variables (food safety concern, healthconsciousness and ethical self-identity) on the dependent construct(intention) is not significantly different from zero (for full media-tion) or significantly reduced (for partial mediation). Results ofthese tests on each construct revealed that food safety concern andhealth consciousness are fully mediated by attitude with ethicalself-identity being partially mediated. The results of the finalmodel are provided in Table 3. Overall, the model fit is excellentwith all paths between the indicators and their respective constructsignificant (P < 0.001). The model performs adequately with an R2

value of 0.49 for intention and 0.35 for attitude.

Hypotheses testing

In terms of the hypotheses developed, five of the seven hypothesesare supported empirically; Table 4 provides a summary of theresults. Support is not found for H1b and H3b, relating to the directrelationships between the two antecedents (food safety concernand health consciousness) and intention. However, in both casesattitude played a crucial mediating role. Overall these results

suggest that ethical self-identity and food safety concern are veryimportant factors in shaping attitude, with ethical self-identity alsodirectly influencing intention. Health consciousness, on the otherhand, has only a small role in shaping attitude or intention.

DiscussionExtant research highlights health consciousness as the mostimportant motive for explaining attitude, intention and behaviourtowards organic foods (Tregear et al., 1994; Wandel and Bugge,1997; Zanoli and Naspetti, 2002; Magnusson et al., 2003; Bakeret al., 2004; Padel and Foster, 2005). In contrast to this stream ofresearch, and in accordance with Tarkiainen and Sundqvist (2005)and Brunso and Scholderer (2001), findings in this study indicatehealth consciousness to be the least important motive shapingattitude towards organic produce in relation to other motives,namely ethical self-identity and food safety concern. In addition,the relationship between health consciousness and purchase inten-tion is fully mediated by attitude. Unlike previous research, thesefindings may suggest that although respondents are conscious andalert to changes about their health, as well as responsible for thestate of their health, they associate fewer health benefits (e.g.health preservation, health improvement) with organic producewith little to no direct influence on motivation to purchase.

On the other hand, we find food safety concern to be one of themost important predictors of attitude, but not intention. This indi-cates that respondents’ favourable attitude towards organicproduce are critically formed from their concern over the safety offoods, particularly over residues in food from fertilizers, artificialadditives, preservatives and chemical sprays. However, food safetyconcern does not directly make an impact on consumers’ intentionto purchase organic produce over and above the influence of atti-tude. This indicates that this factor exerts only an indirect impacton intention and hence is not as strong an influence within theoverall model. Exploring the total effects in the model reveals thatethical self-identity has a much stronger influence on purchaseintention (0.62 for ethical self-identity vs. 0.31 for food safetyconcern).

Table 1 Reliability and factor analysis results

Variable No. of items Alpha (Corr) % variance extractedEigenvalue (range ofloadings)

Purchase intention 3 0.96 93.31 2.78 (0.95–0.98)Attitude towards organic 2 0.97 (0.94) 96.78 1.94 (0.98)Ethical self-identity 2 0.87 (0.77) 88.40 1.77 (0.94)Food safety concern 3 0.70 62.99 1.89 (0.78–0.83)Health consciousness 6 0.89 64.98 3.90 (0.68–0.85)

Table 2 Descriptive statistics

Variable Mean (SD) 1 2 3 4 5

1. Purchase intention 3.24 (2.12) 12. Attitude towards organic 1.62 (1.44) 0.67 13. Ethical self-identity 1.35 (1.27) 0.50 0.49 14. Food safety concern 1.76 (1.19) 0.40 0.50 0.45 15. Health consciousness 1.74 (1.02) 0.23 0.33 0.30 0.31 1



In contrast to health consciousness (total effect 0.16 on inten-tion) and food safety concern, ethical self-identity was found toexplain both attitude and intention towards organic produce. Thisfinding is in line with previous research on the purchase of fair-trade groceries (Shaw and Shiu, 2002a) and highlights that ethicalissues may lead individuals to form a favourable attitude towardsorganic produce, which in turn lead to stronger motivations topurchase. Specifically, where ethical issues become central to theindividual’s self-identity, this would result in both attitude andintention being adjusted accordingly (Shaw and Shiu, 2002a), asshown in this study. The findings may reflect that the effect ofegoistic motives, such as healthiness and food safety, on attitudeand intention towards organic foods may be declining, whereasaltruistic motives, such as ethical considerations, currently appearmore pertinent in shaping attitude and intention in the organic foodcontext.

However, only 35% of the variance in attitude is explained bythe three factors (ethical self-identity, food safety concern andhealth consciousness); consequently, respondents may perceiveorganic foods as no better than conventional foods with regard toother purchasing criteria, including, for example taste, longer shelflife, quality or overall perceived value (Magnusson et al., 2001;Fotopoulos and Krystallis, 2002). These factors have not beenspecifically modelled and may add to further explaining attitude.Another limitation is that the population contained only ruralconsumers and a further study should seek to explore a moregeneralizable population. Previous research (Skerratt, 1999;Broadbridge and Calderwood, 2002; McEachern and Warnaby,2006) shows that rural consumers have different views andattitudes towards food and shopping. This could be that rural

communities have less access to fresh produce, such as fruit andvegetables. This is a major issue as organic foods are known tohave shorter shelve life than conventional foods and small localretailers may be reluctant to stock such items.

In addition, offering a choice between organic and conventionalproduce would result in restricted produce offerings, as limitedshelving space in rural shops is taken up with similar organic andconventional product lines.

Therefore, the findings of this study are not generalizable toa wider population group, which should be the focus of futureresearch. One further limitation is the use of a self-selectingsample that may introduce bias into the research findings;however, the researchers conducting the study have tried to limitthis by selecting potential participants at random and trying toencourage all passengers on the ferries, who are residents of Arran,to participate in the study. Lastly, we adopted a narrow definitionof food safety concern within this research, and we would encour-age future researchers in this area to further develop measures offood safety concern to include both microbiological and animaldisease-related safety issues.

Conclusion and implicationsPrevious research reports mixed results about the effect of motiveson attitude and purchase intention towards organic produce.Studies have reported both significant and insignificant relation-ships (e.g. Magnusson et al., 2003; Tarkiainen and Sundqvist,2005), highlighting that our understanding of the role of motives(e.g. health consciousness, food safety) underpinning consump-tion of organic produce remains to some extent elusive.

Table 3 Results of the final model

R2 (Intention) = 0.49; R2 (Attitude) = 0.35Regression path B b SE CR. Significance

Attitude → intention 0.76 0.56 0.09 8.89 ***Ethical self-identity → intention 0.35 0.23 0.10 3.55 ***Food safety concern → attitude 0.41 0.31 0.11 3.61 ***Ethical self-identity → attitude 0.35 0.31 0.09 4.02 ***Health consciousness → attitude 0.21 0.14 0.09 2.19 *

Goodness-of-fit statisticsc2 P c2/d.f. CFI TLI RMSEA AIC51.643 0.263 1.123 0.997 0.996 0.024 115.643

*Significant at 5% level; **Significant at 1% level.NS, not significant; CFI, Comparative Fit Index; TLI, Tucker Lewis Index; RMSEA, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation; AIC, Akaika InformationCriterion.

Table 4 Summary of results

Hypothesis Predicted effect Confirmed (Yes/No)

H1a Health consciousness will positively affect attitude towards organic produce YesH1b Health consciousness will positively affect purchase intention of organic produce NoH2a Ethical self-identity will positively affect attitude towards organic produce YesH2b Ethical self-identity will positively affect purchase intention of organic produce YesH3a Food safety concern will positively affect attitude towards organic produce YesH3b Food safety concern will positively affect purchase intention of organic produce NoH4 Attitude towards organic produce will positively affect purchase intention Yes



The research reported in this paper contributes to knowledge byfirst studying self-identity in the context of organic produce, andsecond, by simultaneously modelling health consciousness, foodsafety concern and ethical self-identity as predictors of attitudeand intention towards organic produce. The findings reported inthis study are important in furthering our understanding of the roleof health consciousness, food safety concern and ethical self-identity in the purchase of organic produce. Our findings indicatethat food safety concern and ethical self-identity are the mostimportant predictors of attitude towards organic produce. Foodsafety concern has to date received little research attention in thearea of organic foods; given the findings in this study, futureresearch could explore this construct in other related contexts.Food safety concern is also pertinent to researchers studying con-sumer trust, as it may be considered as an antecedant of trust in thecontext of choosing conventional, organic or health foods.

Similarly, ethical self-identity, although omitted by previousresearch as a motive affecting attitudes, was found to predict bothattitudes and behavioural intention, highlighting the need toexplore the role of this construct further in consumer decisionmaking. Ethical self-identity may be relevant as a construct inmultiple contexts, including, for example behaviours relating tothe use of renewable energy and carbon offsets. Further, findingsin this study show health consciousness to be the least importantmotive in predicting attitude towards organic produce. Thisfinding provides some support for previous research (Magnussonet al., 2003) which indicates that health consciousness is a motivefor shaping attitude towards organic produce, and at the same timecontradicts Tarkiainen and Sundqvist (2005), who refute health asa predictor of attitude towards organic foods. However, thisfinding may indicate that the value of health consciousness as amotive to purchase organic food is declining. Individuals seem tobe now driven more by other motives, including food safety andethical concerns, to purchase organic produce. There is therefore aneed for research to move away from ‘egoistic’ motives, whichmay have initially explained organic food purchase, and focusmore on ‘altruistic’ reasons, which may be more pertinent inexplaining and predicting consumption of organic produce. In thissense, altruistic motives may be the focus of future research insimilar contexts including pro-environmental behaviours, such asconsumption of renewable energy and recycling.

Overall, these findings indicate that ethical consumers and thoseconcerned about food safety are more likely to develop positiveattitude and intention towards organic foods, than health-conscious consumers. This may also have implications for adver-tisers of organic produce, as organic consumption is shown toequally depend on ethical values and food safety. These perceivedbenefits should be highlighted when marketing organic food prod-ucts to consumers.

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Appendix 1: MeasuresPurchase Intention (7-point: 0–6 scale; higher values indicate stronger purchase intention)I intend to purchase organic food produce within the next fortnight (Not at all to Definitely)I want to purchase organic food produce within the next fortnight (Definitely do not to Definitely)How likely is it that you will purchase organic produce within the next fortnight? (Not at all likely to Very likely)Attitude towards Organic Food Produce (7-point: +3 to -3 scale; higher values indicate a more favourable attitude)Favourable/unfavourablePositive/negativeEthical Self-identity (7-point: +3 to -3 strongly agree to strongly disagree scale; higher values indicate a stronger ethical concern)I think of myself as someone who is concerned about ethical issuesI think of myself as an ethical consumerFood Safety Concern (7-point: +3 to -3 strongly agree to strongly disagree scale; higher values indicate a stronger concern for food safety)Nowadays most foods contain residues from chemical spays and fertilizersI’m very concerned about the amount of artificial additives and preservatives in foodThe quality and safety of meat nowadays concerns meHealth Consciousness (7-point: +3 to -3 strongly agree to strongly disagree scale; higher values indicate greater consciousness abouthealth)I reflect about my health a lotI’m very self conscious about my healthI’m alert to changes in my healthI’m usually aware of my healthI take responsibility for the state of my healthI’m aware of the state of my health as I go through the day



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Michaelidou and Hassan, "The Role of Health Consciousness, Food Safety Concern and Ethical Identity on Attitudes and Intentions Towards Organic Food"