CONSUMER CHOICE FOR LOCAL FOOD: EXAMPLE OF LATVIA AND LITHUANIA

Abstract

Currently, there are two opposing processes in the market development. On one hand, globalisation brings new choices; border is not a barrier anymore to obtain a desired good or service. On the other hand, the society increasingly starts to recognize the importance of sustainable development and, consequently, importance of the process opposite to the globalisation – localisation. This is particularly the case in the food industry, where people start to pay more attention to the origin of products. The purpose of this article is to explore the consumers’ choice of the local products on the example of Latvia and Lithuania. In 2017, the authors conducted a survey in Latvia discovering that the origin of food is important to the people, and the local food increasingly becomes important for the consumers. Similar pilot study has been launched in Lithuania to compare the attitudes and preferences of the citizens of two neighbouring countries in favour of the locally produced food. The survey method, logical-constructive method, monographic and graphical methods are used in this research. As a result, it has been concluded that similar tendencies are observed in the two geographical areas of study – the consumers prefer the products of the local domestic producers. However, there are also some discrepancies, mainly due to the different levels of territorial development.