1. Introduction
The perception of organic fruits depends on consumers’ experiences with the product, and in the case of fruits these are distinguished as healthy, nutritious, attractive, and tasty. The price, the consumption culture and the preparation diversification are also considered as important aspects [
1,
2,
3]. In the case of preferences for organic products, given their nutritional properties, the information that labels can provide, such as the specifications and healthy qualities of the food, acquires a special value, especially for young and informed consumers [
4,
5,
6,
7].
The healthy benefits of organic fruit are mainly reflected by its contribution to dietary adjustments, given its efficiency in weight control, with a long-term consumption, which becomes more necessary as people grow older [
6,
7,
8,
9]. Considering the nutritional contributions provided by organic fruits, consumers prefer this healthy food, as occurs with the positive attitude in the case of the Mediterranean diet. Another aspect that influences a favorable attitude and the intention to purchase these foods are the governmental promotion policies and an easy access to these products’ distribution channels [
10,
11,
12,
13,
14,
15,
16].
This understanding of the positive health effects of consuming organic fruits compared to non-organic fruits is one of the factors driving consumers to purchase them [
17,
18,
19,
20,
21,
22,
23,
24,
25,
26]. It becomes possible to segment the organic fruit consumer market into consumers informed about the organic food properties, as well as their search for variety and quality [
27,
28].
In this regard, organic certification can contribute to improving this product awareness, although studies show that consumers are still poorly informed about the certification types and their benefits. These advances in organic fruit labeling and packaging have a positive value in increasing food diversification [
22,
29,
30,
31]. In addition, the organic food consumption has a positive impact on the environmental care, which contributes to the waste reduction due to the new technologies that benefit the processing and reuse of food, mitigating the effects of climate change and generating local economies for the communities [
23,
32,
33,
34,
35,
36,
37]. On the other hand, conventional foods usually have high sugars, artificial flavors, and colorings compared to healthy menus that have beneficial properties such as high fiber content and omega 3. Thus, among the main benefits that drive the healthy food consumption is the health risk reduction in diabetes, cholesterol, and heart problems, in addition to the freshness properties reported through organic labels and the variety of products for consumption at farmers’ markets [
17,
22,
24,
32,
38,
39]. A major consumer concern is the pesticide effects on non-organic fruit and their impacts on health and the environment, encouraging decisions to purchase organic fruit [
20,
40].
Also, the non-availability of nutritious products is perceived by consumers, with taste, portion size and accessibility being factors that impede the healthy food consumption in the adult population. In addition, there is widespread inexperience with organic products, the information dissemination on labels, the pesticide use, shopping places, ease of purchasing products in their current markets, irregular supply from certified suppliers and perishable nature, causing confusion in the appropriate prices to be paid for these foods [
21,
27,
29,
38,
41,
42].
Finally, price awareness is another important factor that can inhibit or trigger the organic fruit consumption, being sensitive to the current economic crisis and the sanitary effect due to COVID-19. The benefits of consuming organic products and the differentiation of these products in the market are the most effective ways to increase their consumption.; [
27,
28,
30,
43,
44].
Therefore, we propose a conceptual relationship model whose hypotheses (H1–H12) can be seen in
Figure 1.
Figure 1 contains in detail direct relationship hypotheses: H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6. Indirect mediated relationship hypotheses: H8, H9 and H10. Moderation hypotheses: H11 and H12.
Direct relationship hypothesis:
H1. Health has a positive impact on organic fruit purchase intention.
H2. Health has a positive impact on attitude towards organic fruit.
H3. Consumer fear towards conventional products has a positive impact on purchase intention for organic fruit.
H4. Consumer fear towards conventional products has a positive impact on attitude towards organic fruit.
H5. Environmental motivations have a positive impact on the intention to purchase organic fruit.
H6. Environmental motivations have a positive impact on attitude towards organic fruit.
H7. Positive attitude toward organic fruit has a positive impact on purchase intention.
Indirect relationship hypothesis:
H8. The relationship between consumer fear and purchase intention is mediated by attitude toward organic fruit.
H9. The relationship between health and purchase intention is mediated by attitude toward organic fruit.
H10. The relationship between environmental motivations and purchase intention is mediated by attitude toward organic fruit.
Moderation hypothesis:
H11. The attitude toward organic fruit effect on purchase intention is moderated by perceived price. Thus, the higher the perceived price, the greater the attitude effect on purchase intention.
H12. The attitude effect toward organic fruit on purchase intention is moderated by effort. Thus, the greater the effort, the greater the attitude effect on purchase intention.
2. Materials and Methods
The measurement instrument used was selected through a previous systematic review work [
45], which has contrasted among 184 papers published in Web of Science the model proposed by Jose & Kuriakose [
25] (See
Appendix A), to provide validity and reliability in the measurement, surpassing in statistical terms other reviewed articles that measure the organic fruit consumer behavior [
20,
40,
46].
Thus, the Jose & Kuriakose [
25] scale integrates the constructs that allow studying this consumption behavior, proposed by Scarpa & Thiene [
47] (fear), Steptoe et al. [
48] (health), Gil et al. [
49] (environmental motivations), Steptoe et al. [
48] (perceived price), Dickieson et al. [
50] and Lichtenstein & Burton [
51] (purchase effort). Finally, according to Jose & Kuriakose [
25] for Attitude we asked about the importance assigned to organic fruit based on Magnusson et al., [
52], and for purchase intention we used the item “who will buy organic fruit in the future” based on Ajzen [
53].
The instrument was applied online in a self-reported mode (See
Appendix A), in a population residing in the Santiago of Chile Province between April and May 2022, using a sampling procedure by convenience. Once the responses were collected, a first debugging analysis was carried out, going from an initial sample of 464 individuals to 458 (Data in
Supplementary Materials,
Table S1: OFCB2.xlsx). The sample obtained was composed of about 80% of people under 35 years of age. Most of them, approximately 53%, reported identifying with the female gender, while approximately 44% did so with the male gender. Eighty-three percent reported being single while approximately 16% reported being married. In terms of education level, almost 42% had university studies, 23% had technical studies and 30% had secondary education. More than 40% had children under 12 years of age in the household. See
Table 1.
We then proceeded with the application of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilks tests, and the PLS-SEM analysis, as recommended by Hair et al. [
54]. The procedure was performed using the statistical analysis application [
55] SmartPLS v3.3.9, taking into consideration the research purpose and the sample particularities.
Thus, the general model was tested, which is shown in the Results section. Initially, for the evaluation of the measurement model, the outer loadings indicators were considered, the criterion used to be values equal to or greater than 0.7. On the other hand, in the AVEs, results above 0.5.
The cultural difference in the origin of the sample was considered, considering the differences between the Indian culture and the Chilean culture, from which the sample was extracted for this analysis, especially in terms of masculinity, indulgence, and long-term orientation [
56], giving an opening to the statistical elimination of unsupported items.
Specifically, the variance-based SEM procedure was used, based on Partial Least Squares (PLS), to estimate the relationship between the constructs and their predictive powers proposed in the model [
57,
58]. The choice of this method was considered appropriate, considering a relatively small sample and non-normality in the data obtained [
59,
60]. Also, the PLS methodology has increased its use, given its technical advantages, in different areas, such as management, business and marketing [
61,
62].
The SmartPLS software, version 3.3.9 [
55], was used for these analyses. Thus, the Dijkstra and Henseler [
63] Consistent PLS algorithm procedure was used, considering relevant, given the reflective nature of the constructs considered, a maximum of 1000 iterations, a stopping criterion of 1 × 10
−7 and centroid weighting scheme considering the existence of unidimensional constructs [
64].
For measurement model evaluation, in terms of reliability and internal consistency, Cronbach’s Alpha (>0.8), Rho A (>0.7) and composite reliability (CR, >0.7) indicators were considered. Heterotrait-Monotrait analysis (HTMT, <0.9) was also considered to assess discriminant validity [
65]. To test discriminant validity, according to the criterion established by Fornell and Larker [
66], the correlation matrix was reviewed and compared with the AVE square root. The AVE square root should be greater than the correlations associated with the construct from which the AVE is derived.
For structural model evaluation, the first step was to check for evidence of collinearity by means of the Variance Inflation Factors (VIF) statistic. Consistent PLS Bootstrapping analysis was used as a probabilistic approximation to the significance of the relationships expressed in the calculated model [
63]. Thus, a total of 1000 randomized subsamples were calculated. Centroid’s Weighting Scheme was used again. with a maximum of 1000 iterations and a Stop Criterion of 7 [
64].
To evaluate the moderating impact of the variables, regressions were used, using SPSS version 21 software and the macro-Process [
67], scale reliability analyses were performed, as well as measurements of the interactions proposed in the hypotheses.
4. Discussion
The results reaffirm the recent findings of Rodriguez-Bermudez et al. [
27] on the positive impact that health has on the attitude towards organic fruit by organic and conventional consumers, given better quality attributes and the absence of pesticide residues, but at the same time recognizing the barrier that price represents. Sadiq et al. [
68] and Țigan et al. [
69] also reinforce this recognition of a greater contribution to health, and Moor et al. [
70] reinforce the price constraint.
Regarding the impact of health on the intention to purchase organic fruit, the results are in line with the meta-analysis of Rana and Paul [
71] on the priority role of health in the decision making of an individual to purchase organic food. And the importance that this implies in the marketing strategies of traders and producers with respect to highlighting the health benefits of this food type. Among the strategies, the importance of the distribution channel stands out, given the effect of purchasing effort on the consumption of organic foods [
72].
Environmental motivations have a positive impact on the attitude towards organic fruit, from the social perception about organic food consumers attributing to them higher morale, solidarity, generosity, social responsibility, and status than conventional food consumers [
73]. Since the individual choice of organic consumption not only has an impact on health but also on the environment and sustainable development [
74]. Thus, organic products are not only considered to be healthier, but also their production is essentially less harmful to the environment [
68]. Therefore, consumers pay more and more attention to the products they buy, seeking to minimize the negative impact of their purchasing decisions on the environment [
75]. Additionally, these environmental motivations also have a positive impact on organic purchase intention [
18,
76,
77] effort to execute purchase attitude towards organic fruit purchase intention.
On the other hand, we found that the results rule out the effect of fear given the “negative” information about pesticides and chemical fertilizers contained in conventional fruits on the probability that a consumer enters the organic market [
20,
21,
25,
40,
78]. Finally, this study presents a variant on the effects of high price on organic fruit purchase intention studied previously [
18,
27,
79]. Identifying an increase in purchase intention at a higher price in consumers with a low attitude towards organic fruit. This directly proportional relationship has been previously observed, but only in consumers with a high attitude towards organic fruit, as a recognition of the higher quality of organic fruit [
28].
5. Conclusions
The aim in this study was to measure the organic fruit consumer behavior by identifying consumers’ attitude towards organic products and their purchase intention.
The results obtained show reliability and internal consistency in the model and determine that 66% of the total consumers had an attitude towards organic fruits, while 76.5% had an intention to purchase these products. In other words, the organic fruit consumption is becoming important for people, transforming into a sustainable consumption in women and men. In addition, the results showed that consumer fear of conventional products has no impact on the attitude and purchase intention of organic fruit consumers.
From these results it can be inferred that the attitude and purchase intention of consumers for organic fruits is closely related to health and environmental motivations, since they are identified as foods that provide the right and necessary nutrients to cover the caloric and nutritional requirements of the human body.
Therefore, this study demonstrates the consumers’ interest in organic fruits, highlighting that when the price is perceived as high, the consumers’ purchase intention is high even if their attitude towards organic fruits is low, and above all this study guides the generation of specific research lines among them, what happens with the health benefits provided by the organic fruit consumption. Further analysis should focus on the relationships that may exist between health and consumer satisfaction for organic fruit.
The limitations of this study, due to the sample composition, also open other future research lines, which will allow studying the effects of educational [
27] and age level [
5,
80] on the attitude towards and the purchase intention of organic fruit.