The consumers’ decision-making process in the local food system: An empirical research in Sicily

The objective of this study is to investigate how “local” food is understood within the consumer-producer relationship. The first aim is to identify psychological and social factors influencing consumers’ perception of local food and its impact on food purchase decision-making. The second aim is to examine the agribusiness entrepreneurs’ communication role in the implementation of local food consumption. The explorative study, conducted in Sicily, is based on focus groups (72 consumers) and face-to-face interviews (70 agro-food producers). The confirmatory quantitative study applied the ETPB (Ajizen, 1991; Bissonnette et Contento 2001) to ascertain cognitive, affective and values influencing consumer decision-making (Shaw et al., 2005) and involved 800 consumers of local Sicilian food. Despite the trend in consumer values and attitudes, there are still different barriers to the diffusion of the locally-oriented food consumption style and behaviour. In the progression toward a consumer-orientated agricultural production system, there is a lack of awareness and competence amongst agribusiness entrepreneurs in Sicily. The Sicilian local food is made of up intangible variables, all of which are shaped by goods and people into and out of a particular locality. The results allow the evaluation of the psychosocial variables effect in the choice of local food and the of the communication effect of local agribusiness entrepreneurs.