Demand of Biological Products in Bulgaria

The demand of biological products in Western Europe and the USA is constantly growing, while at some periods in certain countries, the shortage occurs. By the scale point of view of products and sales, the organic product market is dominated by Europe. The goal of the present paper is to study the consumer demand of biological products in Bulgaria and to outline the most important characteristics of consumer behavior within the context of commitments undertaken by Bulgaria for developing the bio-product market. The tasks arising from that goal are connected with characterizing the customer behavior (customer preferences to bio-products, the degree of their awareness and consumption, the main incentives for purchase, the opinion concerning the level of satisfaction and the prospects for the sector) and are related with identifying the barriers for purchase of organic products. As information sources were used the data from own research carried out on the basis of 80 consumers from Stara Zagora, along with observations from retail stores and chains taking part in marketing of biological products as well as data from previous studies already published. The conclusions from the study are: - There is lack yet of keen interest for biological products among Bulgarian customers. This refers as for lack of sufficient awareness about bio-products so by omitting the opportunity to buy such products; - The share of "hard" bio-product customers is still small and even they do not consume these foods every day; - The demand of ecological products is based mainly on characteristics typical of private goods ­ health care, quality and taste of products. The features typical for public goods seem to be at little importance in the demand of bio-products in our country; - The significant conviction of customers in the necessity to check the origin of ecological food is a prerequisite for future expansion of bio-foods as an alternative distribution niche; - The barriers, which are noticed in the consumption of biological products are: the high price, little trust in certification and control, insufficient interest in bio-products, little confidence in the health effect. Regarding the "hard" purchaser, the barrier proves to be the lack of supply of a wide range of bio-products; - In order to provide larger demand of bio-product market, the attention should be drawn into: implementing large-scale promotion of the biological production philosophy and core essence, great awareness about the characteristics and labeling of bio-products; limiting further industrialization and concentration of producers and traders of organic products that is already in conflict with the idea of a non-traditional production and distribution method.