Browsing by Subject "gårdsbutik"

Over the last decade the focus on locally produced food has notably grown in Finland. The same trend has been visible globally for longer, but the trend has picked up speed in recent years. This is visible by assessing the amount of media attention and the growing interest shown by consumers. This master’s thesis focuses on local food, and specifically on what the consumers value when buying locally produced food in a farm shop. It also studies their attitudes and motivations related to local food and organic products. The material that is used for the study originates from a farm in Southern Finland. The farm’s focus lies on selling all that is produced directly to the consumer via their own farm shop. The study was carried out using a questionnaire that was given to the customers visiting a farm shop in the summer of 2014. 54 customers in the farm shop of Mörby gård filled out a questionnaire consisting of 27 questions. The questionnaire featured both open-end questions and questions with given answers to choose from. The data was analysed with both qualitative and quantitative methods. Most of the participants were female, and more than three quarters had a degree from either a vocational university or a university. The two most commonly used borders for what can be defined as locally produces was the municipality or the county where one resides. Most of the participants identified taste as an important aspect when they buy products in the farm shop. Simultaneously a great many stated that the price wasn’t that important, or they had a neutral viewpoint for this factor. As a negative aspect of shopping for local food in a farm shop participants stated the amount of logistical effort it takes when one has to drive out to a lot of different places in order to get a hold of all the products one wants to buy. At the same time many stated that they value the fact that they can see the production site and the animals for themselves when they visit the farm shop. The study didn’t find that one’s income affected how important one found the price aspect to be. Neither was there statistically significant correlation between how many times per week a person cooked food and the importance of the price aspect.