Enhancing organic food identity through green marketing in Thailand: Mediating role of environmental, health, and social consciousness

• Published date: 01 November 2019
• Author: Muhammad Haseeb,Kittisak Jermsittiparsert,Mohammed Dawabsheh
• Date: 01 November 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wfp2.12009

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wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/wfp2 World Food Policy. 2019;5:74–91.

© 2020 Policy Studies Organization

DOI: 10.1002/wfp2.12009

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Enhancing organic food identity through green

marketing in Thailand: Mediating role of

environmental, health, and social consciousness

KittisakJermsittiparsert1

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MuhammadHaseeb2

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MohammedDawabsheh3

1Social Research Institute, Chulalongkorn

University, Bangkok, Thailand

2Taylors Business School, Taylors

University Lakeside Campus, Selangor,

Malaysia

3Faculty of Arts, Arab American

University, Bangkok, Palestine

Correspondence

Kittisak Jermsittiparsert, Social Research

Institute, Chulalongkorn University,

Bangkok, Thailand.

Email: kittisak.j@chula.ac.th

Abstract

Green marketing is revolutionizing all aspects of business in-

cluding organic food industry. Few years back, it was hard

for consumers to identify themselves with organic food but

with a developed consciousness through green marketing,

they are consuming such food in a larger quantity. The pur-

pose of this study was to check the impact of green marketing

on organic food identity and also to see the mediating roles

of environmental, health, and social consciousness in this re-

spective relationship. Thailand is emerging as one of the larg-

est consumers of organic food and this study has collected

data from its 308 residents through questionnaire-based sur-

vey. The results of structural equation modeling have shown

that green marketing enhances organic food identity while

social and health consciousness significantly mediate the

relationship between them. However, the mediating role of

environmental consciousness was observed insignificant in

the relationship between green marketing and organic food

identity. Originality of this study is in the mediating roles

of consciousness dimensions which were not observed pre-

viously. Implications of this study are for food consumers,

organic food manufacturers and the government of Thailand.

KEYWORDS

environmental consciousness, green marketing, health consciousness,

organic food identity, social consciousness

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INTRODUCTION

The consumption of food by the individuals has significant effect on the public health, environment

and social consciousness. The different environmental issues, that is, water scarcity, greenhouse gas

emission, pollution, carbon dioxide emission are associated with the consumption of food (Hwang,

2016). It can be demonstrated by the effect of beef as protein on the environment. About 221.63g of

carbon dioxide is produced by the production of per gram protein. Different health problems, that is,

illness, pain, headache, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, and death are resulted due to consump-

tion of food having infectious microorganism and undesirable residues (Sony & Ferguson, 2017).

Moreover, the medical costs increases due to food borne diseases that resulted in loss of public health

sector. Meat foods such as beef, mutton, and hens and dairy foods such as milk, margarine and cheese

imposed great environmental problems by consuming it (Mai & Hoffmann, 2015). Thus, for the sus-

tainability and maintainability of the environment and for the well-being of public, it is necessary to

have sustainable food behaviors. The purchase and consumption of organic food, food preparation with

less wastage, less cost, and advanced technology and healthy food shows the sustainable food behav-

iors that are important in the developing countries due to the environmental issues that these countries

are facing in their whole life. This sustainable environment is driven by the consumer's responsibility

to environment along with the personal choice of usage (Roy & Chatterjee, 2016). The organic food,

having several definitions, is broadly defined as “any food that is grown without any usage of synthetic

fertilizers, genetically modified organisms, pesticides, sewage sludge and growth hormones.” It is

generally believed that as compared to conventional food, organic food is safe, healthy, eco-friendly

and nutritious because it is developed according to ethics of the environment, health and community.

It is the belief of people that organic food is more natural and less polluted (Banister & Button, 2015).

According to conceptual framework of green marketing (Figure 1), different organizations through

the production processes, management practices and human resource management contributes to dif-

ferent environmental and social concerns. Although different studies explain the attitude of consumers

toward the organic food that increase its purchase and consumption but different reports suggest that

despite of positive attitude of organic food, some consumers do not prefer to buy it. Teng and Wang

(2015) demonstrate in their study that although the young consumers show a positive attitude toward

the organic food, they do not prefer to buy it. According to Lee, Hampton, and Jeyacheya (2015),

the low rate of organic food purchase is due to barriers and motives associated with the organic food

which makes it difficult for consumers to make decision of its purchase. This is further studied by

Yadav (2016) who demonstrated that in decision making process of consumer to purchase organic

food, different marketing factors, that is product quality, brand familiarity, distribution of product and

demand are involved that affect the purchasing of organic food. This along with conventional buying

of food reduces the impact of positive attitude in buying organic food (Ng, Hamid, & Yusof, 2017).

For effective purchasing of organic food and help in the decision making of consumers, there is a need

of effective green marketing tools by organic food retailers to implement the purchasing of organic

food (Ottman, 2017). Green marketing for organic food includes the distribution and production of en-

vironment friendly products, marketing communications and branding of the product. The marketing

of organic food can be done by advertisement, sales promotion, publicity, and public relations. Green

marketing includes creating a connection among the purchaser and buyer by wisely assimilating the

mediating roles of health, environment, and social influences (Martínez, 2015). However, these fac-

tors are unexplored yet and researches are needed to cover these areas.

The green marketing strategies as shown in Figure 2, help in the environmental, health, and social

consciousness that ultimately helps in the enhancement of organic food identity in Thailand. The

environmental consciousness by the green marketing results in healthier and safe environment that is