Organic Vegetable Shopping Gap: What Trust and Price Mean for Everyday Shoppers

The research analysed responses from 340 adults aged 18–64 in Olt County, a vegetable-producing region of southern Romania, using an online survey conducted between February and May 2025.

An organic label can attract interest without earning a regular place in someone's shopping basket, especially when questions about cost, trust and availability enter the decision.

The study "Understanding Organic Vegetable Consumer Orientation: Associations with Price Perception, Willingness to Pay, and EU Awareness—A Case Study of Olt County, Romania," published in Agriculture, examines that gap. Researchers found that positive attitudes towards organic vegetables were stronger than reported buying habits, with willingness to pay extra offering a clearer picture of consumer orientation than perceptions of high prices alone.

What 340 shoppers revealed about organic choices

The research analysed responses from 340 adults aged 18–64 in Olt County, a vegetable-producing region of southern Romania, using an online survey conducted between February and May 2025. These participants formed a regional subset of an earlier survey involving 533 respondents.

The team developed the Organic Vegetable Consumer Orientation Index, or OVCI, to bring together five aspects of organic shopping:

• purchasing frequency,
• the proportion of vegetables consumed that were organic,
• trust in products bought directly from producers,
• trust in certified organic products, and
• the importance attached to certification.

Each component received equal weight on a scale from zero to one, with price questions kept separate for comparison.

The average index score was 0.610 among the 339 respondents with sufficient answers. Certification's importance scored 0.817, compared with 0.441 for purchasing frequency and 0.435 for organic vegetables' share of consumption. These are standardised scores, not percentages of purchases, and they suggest that favourable attitudes were stronger than everyday shopping commitments.

Trust in products bought directly from producers scored higher than trust in certified organic products, highlighting the place of personal confidence alongside formal labels.

Women recorded slightly higher overall scores than men, with a small difference between the groups. Age showed an overall statistical association; follow-up comparisons did not establish clear differences between individual age groups, and only five participants were aged 55–64. Education, household income, household size and urban or rural residence showed no statistically significant differences in overall scores.

The price tag shares space with a trust problem

Lack of trust in organic certification was the most frequently selected barrier to consumption, reported by 26.5% of the full sample. High prices followed at 25.9%, and limited local availability accounted for 20%. Another 17.9% selected the response saying they consumed organic vegetables, identifying no barrier in that question.

Doubts about differences from conventional vegetables and limited knowledge of potential benefits appeared less frequently.

Among respondents answering the price question, 90.8% considered organic vegetables more expensive than conventional alternatives: 57.3% described prices as slightly higher and 33.5% as much higher.

Price perceptions were associated with purchasing frequency, with people describing organic vegetables as much more expensive tending to buy less often. The association was small, and perceived price showed no statistically significant relationship with the proportion of vegetables consumed that were organic or with the overall OVCI score.

Supermarkets and local markets were the main purchasing channels, selected by 50.6% and 48.2% respectively; 29.4% bought directly from producers. Specialist organic shops and online buying played much smaller roles, and 74.4% reported buying a mix of vegetables depending on availability and offers.

The extra amount shoppers would accept

A willingness to pay more was associated with more frequent purchasing, a larger organic share of vegetable consumption and higher overall index scores. The largest group, 42.6%, said they would accept prices 6–15% above conventional vegetables. Another 27.6% would pay 16–30% extra, 20.6% would accept an increase of up to 5%, and 9.1% would pay more than 30% extra.

Average OVCI scores ranged from 0.521 in the lowest premium group to 0.681 among those accepting the highest premium. The statistically clear distinction separated the group willing to pay up to 5% extra from all three higher-premium groups; differences among those three groups were not statistically significant.

Being prepared to accept a moderate extra cost appeared more informative than simply recognising that organic vegetables were expensive. The answers describe what participants said they would pay, with no checkout transactions used to confirm those amounts.

Clearer information and easier access could help

People reporting awareness of European Union initiatives promoting organic products had a higher average OVCI score, at 0.646, than those reporting no awareness, at 0.561. Participants unsure about their awareness scored 0.615 and belonged to the same statistical grouping as those reporting awareness.

For producers, retailers and policymakers, the authors' recommendations centre on making certification, production practices and product origins easier to understand, explaining the attributes behind price differences, and improving availability through familiar outlets such as supermarkets and local markets. Accessible information about EU initiatives could support these efforts, with its effects needing further testing.

Participants were recruited through convenient contacts and referrals rather than random selection, meaning the results cannot represent everyone in Olt County or Romania. The survey captured a single period and relied on people's accounts of their behaviour, price tolerance and awareness.

The new index needs further validation, and 60 participants left the certified-product trust question unanswered. Restricting calculations to fully completed index responses produced a similar average score; the main statistical relationships were not retested using that smaller group.