Income Quality and Organic Food Purchase Intention: The Chain Mediating Role of Environmental Value, Perceived Consumer Effectiveness

Concerns about income inequality and environmental pollution have been important aspects of achieving sustainable development goals. Promotion and use of organic food is one important way to reduce resource consumption and waste. In this study, the structural equation model (SEM) was used to analyze 450 questionnaire data, and the environmental values and perceived consumer effectiveness were used as mediating variables to explore the influence mechanism of income quality on the organic food purchase intention. An extended Value—Attitude—Behavior (VAB) theory was used as the research framework, and the results showed that: (1) income quality had a significant positive effect on environmental values, perceived consumer effectiveness, and organic food purchase intention; (2) perceived consumer effectiveness had a significant positive effect on organic food purchase intention and played a partial mediating role; and (3) environmental values and perceived consumer effectiveness played a chain mediating role between income quality and organic food purchase intention. Plain Language Summary Organic food pays attention to the coordinated development with the natural environment, which has the characteristics of high quality, pure green and pollution-free. Compared with other foods (such as green foods, conventioanl foods), organic food have the highest sustainable attributes. This study aims to promote organic food consumption in China. Previous scholars have focused on the quantitative aspect of income, but this study introduces income quality into the study of organic food consumption and proves that income quality has good applicability in the study of organic food consumption. This study theoretically improves the explanation and prediction of organic food consumption, and in practice helps governments, certification agencies, agricultural enterprises and other entities to formulate reasonable and effective organic food management and strategic marketing from the perspective of consumers.