On-line purchases of organic food in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Czech Republic

ABSTRACT

The Czech organic food market is on the rise. Organic food production has seen a significant boom in terms of sales volumes, which enabled opening of new shopping channels for consumers. In 2020, a number of strict measures was introduced with the intention to curb the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which also affected the organic food distribution and preferred places of purchase. Due to all the lockdowns and limitations, on-line shopping entered the scene as a new potential tool for organic food market development. The aim of this research is to identify the organic food shopping patterns of internet users during March and April 2020 in the context of freshly introduced governmental measures, and to identify dependencies according to selected socio-demographic respondents' characteristics. The results show that respondents' level of education and their age are the key determining factors when it comes to their on-line organic food purchases.