Consumption and offer of organic food on the Slovak market

Abstract

The growing interest of consumers in the products of organic farming is currently considered as a trend on the food market. The aim of the submitted paper is to characterize organic farming, the production, the offer of organic food in Slovak retails and the position of consumers on the organic food market in Slovakia. For evaluating the situation of organic farming in Slovakia, secondary data from the database of Research Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics and Central Institute of Control and Testing in Bratislava were used. The primary data were obtained through two survey questionnaires. The aim of the first of them was to find out the offer of organic food in retail stores in Slovakia. Based on the results, we can state that most of the addressed retailers sell organic food and the most widespread are dairy products and bakery products. Nowadays, the offer of organic food is the same as the most desirable products by consumers. 40 % of the surveyed Slovak retails have specially labelled products of organic farming placed among conventional foods. The second conducted questionnaire survey, which aim was to determine buying behaviour of young consumers on the Slovak market. Based on the results, it could be stated that consumers mostly purchase organic food in specialized stores, supermarkets, hypermarkets, and they mainly decide according to the quality and origin of the food.