Preferences of consumers from Serbia toward organic eggs

Abstract

In order to examine consumers’ preferences toward eggs from organic production and their willingness to allocate more money for these eggs, 581 respondents were surveyed in three regions of Serbia (the Belgrade region, the Šumadija and the Western Serbia region, and the Southern and Eastern Serbia region). Through the survey questionnaire, respondents declared themselves whether they are buying organic eggs and how much money they are ready to allocate for this type of eggs. Answers from surveyed respondents who are buying organic eggs were analyzed by gender, age, status, education, monthly income and the region in which they are living. According to the survey results, it can be concluded that in Serbia, there is a very small number of consumers who are buying organic eggs (2.41%), and that all of them are located in the Belgrade region. Furthermore, only 8.34% of consumers were willing to pay 30% higher price for organic eggs, on average for all three regions. Analyzing data within the category of organic eggs consumers, the highest tendency for buying organic eggs was determined for female respondents (76.92%), those with the higher education level (61.54%), the employed respondents (92.31%), the respondents aged from 36 to 55 (61.52%) and the respondents with the highest monthly household income (46.15%). The results of the present study indicate that the percentage of consumers who buy organic eggs in Serbia is very small, it is present only in certain regions and the willingness to pay more for organic eggs is low.