A Study on Factors Affecting Consumers Decision to Purchase Vegetables

Fresh vegetables are integral part of consumer’s food expenditure. Every consumer wants good value for money in market for making purchase of fresh vegetables and also looks forward to have good quality, pest and disease free, hygienic and safe produce at affordable price. The current research work was carried out to investigate the consumer perspective and concerns during supply chain of fresh vegetables. The study was carried out in Delhi (India). The core parameters for concerns were grouped under categories like consumer’s behavior on purchase of vegetables; consumer’s concern on vegetables safety and dependence on information channel. Among various factors studied, results indicate that freshness and price were the main factors affecting the consumer’s decision to buy vegetables. Buying preferences do not get much affected by age or gender of the buyer. Most of the respondents preferred buying vegetables more than once in a week and also preferred to buy them fresh and from local market rather than super markets. Female respondents were more concern about freshness, price, total quality, and shelf life, place of purchase and place of origin. Male respondents were more concerned about pesticide residues, heavy metals and packaging contamination than female respondents. Most of the respondents used friends or family, TV, and internet as a source of food safety information. Most of the respondents believe that vegetables which they are eating are not safe and production location of the vegetables is most sensitive area to have maximum contamination. Despite the price as second most concerned factor found in the study for purchasing vegetables, majority of respondents were ready to pay higher price for safe vegetables.