ANALYSIS OF SOME SPECIFIC FEATURES OF THE LOCAL FOOD MARKET IN ROMANIA

A particular importance is given to the local food products (LFP) during the last 20 years, due to the impact they could have on the public health, local economy, community and environment. Our research purpose is to determine: consumption and production, reasons, fidelity, trade mode and place. The research has been carried out: by means of two surveys, addressed to the consumers and producers in the North-East Development Region of Romania; Exploratory Factor Analysis and Cluster TwoStep Analysis. LFP consumers interact face-to-face (70.7%); they prefer the specialised shops (41.5%); have good knowledge about the production process and traceability (37.0% and 41.5%, respectively); consider LFP as being healthy (30.3%); prefer the lower price by 20% versus those in supermarkets (27.8%) and they will buy up to an increase by 30% (44.2%). The reluctance arises sometimes from the lack of quality certification (29.3%). The producers prefer the face-to-face interaction (53.5%); sell mostly on the agri-food market (31.6%); are poor informed about the production process and traceability (31.4% and 39.2%, respectively); they motivate the selling by the supply of healthy products to fellow citizens (19.9%); consider that they sell by 20% cheaper than the supermakets (46.3%), but they will give up if the prices would decrease by 20% (35.8%). The TwoStep Cluster Analysis suggests the following profiles: "elevated consumers" (49.2%) and "pragmatic consumers", "conservative producers" (61.1%) and "trader producers".