STUDY BY ISRA CENTER MR: Just 2.3% of the population is buying organic products

Urban inhabitants are confused on the meaning of "organic food", a study made by ISRA Center Marketing Research, which emphasizes that "1 out of 10 Romanians say that they don"t know the meaning of the notion of organic products or haven"t heard about them, most of them associate them with the notion of natural or healthy products in general (60%), without taking their understanding further. A significant proportion of the interviewed persons consider that organic products are those bought from small farmers (from the market) or those produced in their own household (about 8% of those who participated in the study). Just 19% of the Romanians who were interviewed offered a more specific definition of organic products, which includes products having the following attributes: products that weren"t chemically treated, products that weren"t genetically modified, products in specialized organic stores (with just 1% of them mentioning this spontaneously), grown in an unpolluted environment or which aren"t harming the environment".

Confusion can be once again seen among those who claim that they buy organic products at least once a month. Thus, just 5% of them buy their organic products in specialized stores. More than half of them (53%) claim that they bought ecological products from traditional retailers (market, street vendors, small shops, small producers).

Of the entire population, only 2.3% buy real organic products at least once a month, usually from specialized shops, the study also shows. Also, about 19% of the urban population claims that it buys organic products from modern retailers (supermarket, hypermarket, discount stores), at least once a month, thus evidencing the influence of "health oriented advertising" which some targets or brands are using.

The study sampled 1,108 respondents, typical for urban areas (cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants), aged 20 to 60.