Retail sale price strategy on the market of organic animal products

Abstract

Organic animal farming has only started to take position in the last few years in Hungary, only ZY-Z^ X of organic farms deal also with animal keeping and as a consequence, the production volume of organic animal products is not considerable. Considering the total organic products assortment, organic animal products only have aminor share – however, thanks to the environment-conscious farming and animal welfare expectations and inreasing demand from the consumers supply needs to be widened continuously. Special organic shops and supermarkets that serve a wider consumer circle and offer organic products dominate the retail trade, but the parallel sales/offer of plant and animal product is not characteristic in the practice in Hungary. Only [\X of the \Y retailers which participated in the research sell organic animal products as well, but organic animal products give only \-^X of the supply in these stores. If we examining the products range, it can be stated that mainly meat products, read meat and ripened dry products are demanded by the customers, and as demand is left unsatisfied, mainly import products are offered, which result in even higher prices in the otherwise high-price segment. Examining consumer prices, we can state that the relative price difference between the investigated organic products and conventional products exceeds the supplementary [^-\Y X, the level that consumers still accept. From among the examined meat products Hungarian consumers paid the highest price premium (Z_aX) for pork, but according to the results the organic price premiums exceeded ZYYX in the case of dairy products too. The ecological circumstances of production inHungary, the size of stock of organic animal farms, the available information,market research and consumer studies underline the possibilities of the topic and of organic animal farming. But the final decision – whether organic or traditional product should be purchased – is made by the consumer.