A Study on Customer Awareness about Certification Towards Organic Products

Abstract

As more organic products are available in the Indian market place than ever before, consumers can only be expected to be knowledgeable and informed with more new organic options than conventional products that simply appear healthy or new, and all this variety of products and claims lends its self to not evaluating the structure of their claims and legality. As difficult as this might be, is sometimes can be easily ways to help consumers decide whether what they are looking at is organic. When it comes to organic certification there are symbols that appear on products that stood with certification organizations. Consumers can routinely take a peek at the symbols and explore whether the original source or true the product was comprised of organic really means something or not. Organic certification that exists for certification for organic agricultural producers or organic food producers. In general, ANY food producer, from a seed supplier or grower/farmer, food processor, affected trader, or distributor, or a restaurant can certify themselves as organic. For organic products and producers relative to National standards for Organic Production, the certifying body is the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority of India (APEDA). The organic products certified by the India accredited certification bodies that discharge India Organic certification mark are well accepted in many importing countires. Typically organic food products that are produced in India and exported will carry the India Organic certification designation mark by the APEDA producer. It has approved 11 certifying agencies for inspections, including some subsidiary agencies of foreign certifying agencies and some local certifying agencies. The current research paper presents the current status of consumer awareness toward certification of organic products in Virudhunagar District.