Moderating effects of consumer empowerment on the relationship between involvement in eco-friendly food and eco-friendly food behaviour

This study investigates the moderating effect of consumer empowerment on the relationship between involvement in and purchase behaviour towards eco-friendly food. It uses the generalized linear model, with data from the 2017 Research on Food Consumption. The results showed that gender is related only to involvement in eco-friendly food and this involvement is higher for women than for men. Moreover, involvement in eco-friendly food, purchase empowerment, engagement empowerment and frequency of buying eco-friendly food increase as age increases, with the highest increases observed at ages 40–49 and 50–59; the score for those older than these age groups was much lower, resembling an inverted U shape. Groups with high education and income levels presented high scores for involvement in eco-friendly food, purchase empowerment, engagement empowerment and frequency of buying eco-friendly food. Regarding the effects of involvement in eco-friendly food, purchase empowerment and engagement empowerment on the frequency of buying eco-friendly food, the main effects of involvement in eco-friendly food and purchase empowerment as well as the interactive effects between involvement in eco-friendly food and engagement empowerment were statistically significant.