Motives for buying local, organic food through English box schemes

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explain the growing interest of English consumers in local organic food sold through box schemes, by providing insights into the motives of customers of such schemes and examining the relationship with their awareness about problems of the agro-food system. Design/methodology/approach A mixed methods approach combined in-depth interviews with 22 box scheme customers with a quantitative survey of 416 consumers, analysed by means of principal component analysis and an ordered logit model. Findings Consumers of small local organic box schemes in England are both altruistically and hedonistically motivated. This includes a strong political motivation to …