Towards a new strategy for organic milk marketing in Hungary

In Hungary, organic food market has both demand and supply oriented aspects: several times not necessary products are distributed, while the selection and volume of certain products are not satisfactory. Thus, our aim was to develop a coordinated benchmark strategy to increase the trade of organic products. To get more details on the Hungarian organic milk market, we conducted professional deep interviews and simultaneously applied the “mystery shopping” method. Nowadays, the market of organic milk and dairy products is slowly increasing in Hungary, however, there is no available statistical data. In the selection there are mostly Hungarian originated products, but some yoghurt, milk, and butter assortments are imported. Partial responsibility belongs to small sale shops’ habit of risk-avoidance. Without a proper selection of products, stores are unable to satisfy consumers’ needs; thus they focus on pushing certain products to increase demand. According to our results, ‘low price category’, ‘local/regional product’, and ‘prestige product’ strategies with attached in-store marketing elements are able to reverse the effects of an unfavourable marketing process

Consumer attitudes toward genetic testing and personalised nutrition in Hungary

The aim of the research is to reveal the most important influencing factors that lead to consumers’ acceptance of personalised nutrition based on genetic testing. A nationwide representative questionnaire-based consumer survey was carried out involving 500 people in Hungary in 2014. The results show that consumers are divided over the new technology. Only 27.0% of the respondents have a positive attitude toward the new possibility, and they would be glad to use this new service in order to stay healthy. The rate of those who would have a genetic test because they want to follow a diet tailored to their needs is very low (16.0%). Our result suggested that the most important factors in consumer preference on personalised nutrition are positive health message and perceived risk/benefits, gender, and educational level. The most important factors regarding the attitude toward genetic testing are easy usage, benefits, the agreement among experts, and educational level

Market orientation of the Hungarian SMEs working in the meat processing and dairy industries

We are looking for the answer as to what tendencies were indicative of the future development of required marketing activity of the SMEs in the article dealing with the marketing activity of the SMEs working in the food industry. The article is based on a nationwide survey among 200 SMEs working in the food processing industry. In this article, we focus on the SMEs working in the dairy and meat processing industries. The results of the nationwide research and some domestic references refer to that there is a latent demand of effective marketing activity among small and medium-sized enterprises. It manifests itself in specifying marketing-related fields to be improved in the future. The marketing itself is believed not to be an important field at the same time. This apparent opposition is the small enterprise marketing paradox in the background of which is the lack of knowledge about the marketing instruments. It can be stated that these small businesses collect mainly general market information and have no information about particular products. Therefore, the presence of marketing planning is really rare and where there is some kind of planning it is not connected to available funds and follow-up control. The marketing strategy can be characterized by products processed mainly at low or medium level. Therefore, market position is deffned by “lower price-good quality”. They mainly use the traditional distribution channels and their communication is accidental and has a low level

Health conscious consumer and functional foods — Exploration of factors affecting consumer behaviour in Hungary via focus group discussions

The research aims to examine the health conscious consumer behaviour on the market of functional foods. In the survey two focus groups with 8 participants from two Hungarian cities were involved. People, whose health behaviour has changed positively in the past few years, were chosen to take part in the focus groups. The respondents connected the concept of health consciousness to the conscious way of life, nutrition and active physical exercises as well. Most of them are interested in the possibilities of healthy nutrition, they consider themselves capable of controlling their state of health, but only few of them take particular steps. The difference is caused by the lack of time and financial background, but the low level of motivations also plays a significant role. The consumers accept the presence of functional foods, which is interpreted as a long run innovation trend. They have limited information about functional ingredients; they do not know nutritional benefits and most of them are mistrustful of this product category. The organisations that are mainly responsible for information are not authentic for the consumers, but the authentic ones do not reach their stimulus threshold. Beliefs, attitudes, subjective norms do not exert enough influence on the consumers and perceived behavioural control does not reach that critical level at which these factors can motivate them to take particular steps