Exploring local and organic food consumption in a holistic sustainability view

The purpose of this paper is to identify sustainability aspects that overlap with local and organic consumer profiles in order to provide evidence that can be used to promote both kinds of foods in a sustainable food consumption (SFC) integrated framework.

Discriminant analysis was applied to a national sample of 3,004 respondents in Italy to separately depict local and organic consumers’ profiles based on personal values, eating habits, food purchase motivations, and involvement.

Organic consumption showed a lower penetration compared to local consumption. However, organic consumers adhered to more sustainable consumption principles. Adopting healthy diets and sharing self-transcendence values emerged as common traits of both consumers. Regular consumption made both consumers’ profiles look similar by sharing more sustainability-related traits.

Only two out of the different types of foods promoted as sustainable were considered. Further insights could be made regarding fair trade foods and food promoted by voluntary sustainability standards.

The overlapping motivations of the two consumer profiles provided evidence of the potential efficacy of joint promotion in favour of sustainability and demonstrated that a synergic approach among food systems could foster more sustainable consumption.

This study identified common sustainability motivations among different consumer groups, based on sustainable food categories, adopting a holistic vision of SFC.