Introduction: The modern consumer of organic food in his quest to provide quality and safe products seeks guarantees of their origin. In this regard, awareness of objective indications of the identity of organic products is essential.
Aim: The aim of this article is to study the consumers’ knowledge about organic food labelling.
Materials and Methods: For the purpose of the present research, data from an anonymous survey conducted among 150 organic food consumers from the Dobrich region, in the period from November 2020 until April 2021, were used. The results of the survey were statistically processed using Jamovi Statistics, version 2.2.5. For hypothesis testing, Pearson’s chi-square test (χ2 test) was applied with significance level α = 0.05.
Results: Respondents who are aware of the label for organic certification (text information on the packages) associate organic foods with foods free from GMOs, heavy metals, pesticides, chemical fertilizers and antibiotics, hormones, preservatives and dyes (χ² = 6.20 and p = 0.013) and with foods marked with a leaf sign (χ² = 4.03 and p = 0.045). Respondents informed about the biological certification label rely on television programmes (χ² = 4.38 and p = 0.036) and would positively choose to purchase of organic foods in the presence of a health problem (χ² = 5.69 and p = 0.017). In addition, there is association between buying organic food for children and respondents’ knowledge about organic certification (χ² = 4.99 and p = 0.025). The respondents who recognize the sign "European Leaf" as a designation of organic foods, are most often receiving information from specialized websites and internet portals dedicated on organic foods (χ² = 12.8 and p < 0.001).
Conclusion: The consumers of organic foods are well informed about the characteristic marking – the organic food label, as well as about organic certification. Participants usually acquire this knowledge from television programmes, internet portals or specialized websites.
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