Exploring the Factors Affecting Organic Food Purchase as Immunity Booster during the Pandemic

Organic food products are gaining popularity and are widely accepted by the consumers all over the world. As they are grown and processed without the use of chemicals, consumers feel that it is safe for consumption and does not have any health hazards. The ongoing pandemic situation, COVID-19 has also given a momentum to the acceptance level of these products, as producers are marketing their products with a tag, ‘immunity booster’. This study was an effort to identify and validate the dimensions influencing organic food purchase by the consumers. Questionnaire having 45 questions was developed and administered to 750 respondents. Exploratory factor analysis was applied to explore the factors determining organic food purchase. Exploratory factor analysis yielded five-factor structure. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to verify and confirm, the five-factor structure. Multiple Regression Analysis was applied to identify the most prominent factor, which influenced the customer to make the purchase. Original Research Article Domle et al.; JPRI, 33(58B): 154-159, 2021; Article no.JPRI.71091 155


INTRODUCTION
The concepts of organic agriculture were developed in the early 1900s by Sir Albert Howard, F.H. King, Rudolf Steiner, and others. It referred to food raised, processed and stored processed without the use of chemicals, fertilizers, pesticides, growth hormones and generic modification [1]. Due to its nutrient value and non-involvement of chemicals, organic food are widely accepted by the consumers [2]. Consumers are in search of safe consumption, during this ongoing pandemic situation, and this consumer attitude has given momentum to organic food acceptance level [3]. Now a days organic food producers are promoting their products with the tag 'Immunity Boosters' and it is positively influencing the demand of organic food [4].
India is leading in organic food production with 835000 producers and Switzerland is leading in Organic Food Consumption per capita with $325(healthcareer.co).

Literature Review
Compare to conventional food, organic food, is safer. This trust factor is dominating consumer perception (Rimal and Balasubramanian 2005). Factors like nutritional labels and consumer educational campaign are the main features which is leading to point of purchase of organic food among the consumers (Drichoutis, Lazaridis and Naygya 2006). S. Chib (2019) in her study derived a four-structure model and the influencing factors were nutrient value, accessibility & availability, consumer perception and consumer ideology [5,6]. Health concern, environmental care, chemical residues, pesticides, presence of nutrient and improved flavour and taste are the deciding factors as per Squires et al. (2001). Consumer's belief system consisting of dimensions like health concern, taste and chemical free is resulting their inclination towards organic food (Lea and Worsley,2005).
Factors like expensiveness, limited availability and product confusion is preventing consumers to go for organic food (Fotopoulos and Krystallis, 2002). Difficulty in finding and lack of product clarity is also stopping the consumers to adapt organic food items (Baourakis, 2004 [7,8]. According to Mukherjee D, (2012), the most prominent reason for the purchase of organic food was value for money. Money spent by the customer and the benefits obtained as per their expectations played the main role in deciding the purchase of organic food. Oroian C. E., (2017), made the comparison between the different players of diffusion of innovation namely innovators and early adopters. He found that income was the most dominating parameter [9]. Bordeanu B. M. (2017), concluded that organic food purchase was more amongst the innovators group. Chandrashekar H.M., (2014) explained that determinants of organic food was quality of of the food, its taste, variety and availability [10]. Value for money and availability were the secondary factors. According to him dimensions like, promotional offers were having hardly any role and they have not influenced the customers in their purchase decision. Ahmed R., Rahman K. (2015), parameters like personal influence and demographic factors like income and education level influenced the customer about organic food purchase. Baladhandapani K.,Sivalingam N (2017), was of the view that factors encouraging organic food purchase was disposable income, urbanization and globalization. Change in the consumption pattern also helped in the purchase of organic food in the developing countries [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18].

Objective of the Study
The objectives of the study are as follows: 1. To study the awareness level with respect to organic food among the people in Nagpur.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Study was conducted from March 2020 to October 2020. It was conducted in two parts. Part I dealt with in-depth review of literature. It helped, in identifying the various determinants of organic food consumption and thus formulating the questionnaire for data collection. Part II included identification of factors influencing Organic Food Consumption through Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA).
It was followed by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to validate the derived factor structure through EFA. Multiple Regression Model was used to identify the most influencing factor, out of the derived factor structure.

Sample Selection and Questionnaire Administration
Both Online and Offline method was adopted to collect the data and response rate was 98.13%. 750 questionnaires were administered. 736 was found completely and correctly filled. 14 questionnaires were having ambiguity, hence dropped from further analysis.

Development of Instrument
Literature review paved the way to develop the questionnaire having 45 questions. They were classified into four parts as below:  This study considered 4 demographic variables namely gender, age, qualification and monthly household income.

DEMOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
Cross tabulation was performed to analyse the awareness level of the organic food among the respondents. Out of 359 male respondents, all the 348 respondents were aware of organic food and 11 were not aware of organic food. So the awareness percentage among the male respondents was 96.94 %. Out of 377 female respondents, 327 were aware of and 50 were not aware of organic food products. Awareness percentage among female was 86.74 %. Out of 736 respondents, 675 were aware of organic food products. Percentage of awareness about the organic food products among the respondent was 91.71 %. This study proves, 'Awareness Level with respect to Organic Food is high among the Respondents'.
Our study shows that, demographic variable is not having any influence on customer intention buy organic food. The significance value obtained is more than 0.05 in the demographic variables namely age, gender, education and income. Conclusion of this study is, 'There is sufficient evidence to accept Null Hypothesis.' Hence the study proves: Demographic variable has no influence on the organic food consumption.

Exploring the Deciding Factors of Organic Food Consumption [12-14]
Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was applied to identify the deciding factors of organic food consumption.

Factor Extraction and Total Variance Explained
Factors were explored using the Eigen value criteria and under that, factors with Eigen value greater than 1.0, are considered. Principal Component Analysis and Varimax Rotation were considered for obtaining a component matrix. Related Jamovi output is listed below. In the starting total, 37 items were considered for study. Items namely, S4, S5, S9, S14, S18, S19, S20, S21, S25, S27, S28 and S32 were dropped, due to the redundancy in items. In total 26 items were considered for the final study. These 26 items converged into 5 factors as depicted below.

CONCLUSION
This study proved that, awareness level about the organic food was very high among the respondents and the percentage was 91.71%. Awareness percentage among male was 96.94% and in female, 86.74%. This study showed that, demographic variables were not having any role in deciding the organic food consumption. Male were Study explored the determinants of organic food consumption, using Exploratory Factor Analysis and it converged into 5 factors. The factors thus derived was named as Nutrient Value, Customer Perception, Customer Ideology, Perceived Risk and Trust.
Derived five factors together explained 74.5 % variance. To validate the results of EFA, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used.
Result of CFA demonstrate that, the five factor model is appropriate and has adequate reliability to explain the organic food consumption aspect. Multiple Regression Model helped to the predict the influence of the identified factor and also helped to identify the most prominent factor. Most important emerged from this study was Consumer Perception and its role was 99.85 % which was almost 100. This study confirmed the fact that 'Consumer Perception', plays a key role in consumer behaviour.

Managerial Implications
This study will help organic food producers and marketers to plan their promotional strategies effectively.
It will also help the companies to formulate pricing strategies, which will help them to enhance their market share.

Limitation of the Study and Future Research
Sample size was very small, and the study covered about organic food consumption only. This study can be extended with more sample size and also to other related areas like medical, agriculture, biotechnology, food technology and health sector.

CONSENT
It is not applicable.

ETHICAL APPROVAL
It is not applicable.