PRÄVOBIO

Toralf Richter

Sponsor

Federal Organic Farmign Scheme (Bundesprogramm ökologischer Landbau) of the German government

Project Outline

Organic products are now available -in addition to the traditional organic shops - in nearly every supermarket and many bakeries and butchers also offer organic products. But often the presentation is poor. Consumers complain that organic products are hard to find and recognise because of bad placement or missing identification marks. Further the quality does not meet expectations and the store's style does not fit with the image of organic food. These lacks in presentation might hinder sales of organic products.

Objectives

- Definition of factors for an attractive presentation of organic products in different sales channels (retail chains, organic shops, health food shops, bakeries and butchers).

- Creating a concept (checklist) for the evaluation of the presentation of organic products by salesmen, specialised by the different sales channels.

- Creating a concept for the evaluation of the presentation of organic products by consumers, adapted to the different sales channels.

Approach

Based on a literature review, focus group discussions with consumers and salesmen and interviews with retailers the relevant factors for presenting organic products in the stores have been defined.

The project team developed a checklist for evaluating the presentation of organic products at the point of sale from an expert`s or a salesman`s view. These checklists have been used for evaluating the presentation of several stores in pre-tests (module A).

Workshops with practitioners and advisors gave inputs for improving the applicability of the checklist.

In addition, a checklist is being developed for consumer evaluation of the presentation. Both checklists will be retested and the results discussed in a workshop with salesmen and consumers. Several presentation concepts (e.g. different kinds of placement) will also be investigated by store-tests to determine consumer preferences for placement, marking, and organic product communications (module B).