Acta agriculturae slovenica, suplement 1(avgust 2004), 185–190. 
12
th
 Int. Symp. “Animal Science Days”, Bled, Slovenia, Sept. 2–4, 2004. 
Original scientific article 
Izvirni znanstveni prispevek 
ECOLOGICAL PRODUCTION AS A MARKET REGULATOR FOR THE PORK 
MARKET IN THE COUNTY OF OSIJEK AND BARANJA 
Zdravko TOLUŠI Ć
 a)
, Gordana KRALIK
 b)
 and Vladimir MARGETA
 c)
 
a) 
Josip Juraj Strossmayer Univ. of Osijek, Fac. of Agriculture, Dept. of Agroeconomics, Trg svetog Trojstva 3, HR-
31000 Osijek, Croatia, e-mail: ztolusic@pfos.hr, Assist.Prof., Ph.D., M.Sc. 
b) 
Dept. of Zootechnical Sciences, Same address, Prof., Ph.D., Ph.D., D.h.c, M.Sc. 
c) 
Dept. of Zootechnical Sciences, Same address, Ass. 
ABSTRACT 
The objective of this research was to examine our consumers’ perception of the high-quality 
ecologically produced meat and to ascertain to what extent this form of production and the 
quality of thus obtained pork can influence the pork market flows and be a regulator of this 
market. Based on the results of our research, we may conclude that pork is an important 
foodstuff in the diet of the residents of the County of Osijek and Baranja, since more than 80% 
of our subjects eat pork at least once a week. Price, instead of quality, is still the most important 
criterion for the purchasing of meat. More than 40% of the subjects pay no attention to the origin 
of meat when purchasing it, and a third of them do not check whether the meat is suitable in 
terms of health. Although the entire population is aware of the ecological method of pig-
breeding, almost a third of them do not consider this method of pork production positive. Half of 
the subjects are not ready to pay a higher price for the meat produced by means of the 
ecologically acceptable method, in spite of the fact that they believe such meat to be of higher 
quality. Due to this reason, at this moment ecologically produced pork does not have a notable 
effect on market flows and market regulation. In order to obtain such an effect, certain 
requirements need to be fulfilled. This pertains primarily to the growth of the purchasing power 
of the population, ecological awareness and changes in the diet of our population towards the 
consumption of healthier foods. 
Key words: pigs / ecological production / marketing / consumer attitudes / questionnaires / Croatia 
EKOLOŠKA PRIREJA KOT REGULATOR TRGA S PRAŠI ČJIM MESOM NA 
OBMO ČJU OSJEKA IN BARANJE 
IZVLE ČEK 
Namen raziskave je bil ugotoviti potrebe potrošnikov po visoko kakovostnem ekološko 
pridelanem mesu ter prou čiti, v kakšnem obsegu ekološka pridelava in kakovost tako pridelanga 
praši čjega mesa vplivata in uravnavata trženje le-tega. Na osnovi rezultatov raziskave je mogo če 
zaklju čiti, da je praši čje meso pomembno živilo v prehrani prebivalcev pokrajin Osjek in 
Baranja. Ve č kot 80% anketiranih uživa praši čje meso vsaj enkrat tedensko. Cena in ne kakovost 
je še vedno najpomembnejši kriterij za nakup mesa. Ve č kot 40 odstotkom anketiranih ni 
pomemben izvor mesa in tretjina jih ne preveri ali je meso zdravstveno neopore čno. Kljub temu 
da celotna populacija pozna ekološke na čine reje praši čev, skoraj tretjina od njih tega na čina 
prireje praši čjega mesa ne ocenjuje pozitivno. Polovica vprašanih za ekološko prirejeno meso ni 
pripravljena pla čati ve č, kljub temu da menijo, da je takšno meso kakovostnejše. Tako ekološko 
pridelano praši čje meso trenutno nima pomembnega vpliva na tržne tokove in uravnavanje trga, 
zato bo potrebno v prihodnje izpolniti nekatere pogoje. V prvi vrsti se le-ti nanašajo na dvig 
kupne mo či prebivalstva in njihove ekološke zavesti ter na spremembe v prehranskih navadah 
ljudi v smeri uživanja bolj zdrave hrane. 
Klju čne besede: praši či / ekološka reja / trženje / potrošniki / odnos potrošnikov / ankete / Hrvaška  
http://www.bfro.uni-lj.si/zoo/publikacije/zbornik/suplementi/index.htm

Acta agriculturae slovenica, suplement 1(avgust 2004). 
 
186 
INTRODUCTION 
Pig-breeding is the most important source of meat and meat products as foodstuffs in the diet 
of Croatian population. It is also an important branch of agricultural production in our country. 
In addition to the production of sufficient quantities of meat of adequate quality, the producers 
have recently been faced with a new task – the task of producing healthy and ecologically 
acceptable food. Special emphasis is being placed on production in conditions that would have a 
beneficial effect on the health and welfare of animals. The ecological pig production, which is 
carried out in deep litter housing, is becoming a more and more popular pork production method 
in our country. The ecological production of pork in deep litter housing is cheaper (Gentry et al., 
2002a; Morrison et al., 2003) and more favorable from the viewpoint of health and welfare of 
animals, as well as from the viewpoint of ecology (Lyons et al., 1995; De Jong et al., 1998; 
Beattie et al., 2000; Kelly et al., 2000; Klont et al., 2001; Guy et al., 2002) in comparison with 
the conventional pig fattening. Research into the production and slaughter-house characteristics 
of fattened pigs has shown certain advantages of pig-breeding in deep litter housing (Beattie et 
al., 1996; Morgan et al., 1998; Beattie et al., 2000; Spoolder et al., 2000; Turner et al., 2000; 
Klont et al., 2001; Maw et al., 2001; Lambooij et al., 2004), but it has also shown some 
unfavorable effects that this method of pig-breeding might have on the above-mentioned 
characteristics (Gentry et al., 2002b; Honeyman and Harmon, 2003; Morrison et al., 2003). The 
conventional method of fattened pig and pork production does not meet most of these 
characteristics.  
Our pork producers need to improve their competitiveness, which is at present quite poor in 
relation to producers from the European Union, and the most logical way to improve 
competitiveness is to improve meat quality. Since quality is the most important market property 
and the property which the consumers appreciate the most (Kolega, 2004), there are efforts to 
improve the sales conditions in the present situation, in which there is a surplus of the supply of 
meat at the market. Naturally, this is not the only requirement. In order for quality as the most 
important market property to become even more prominent, it is also necessary to influence 
input decrease in pig-breeding through additional measures of agricultural politics. However, the 
consumers’ purchasing power and their perception that they are paying a higher price for a 
certain product due to its quality are also important market references in pork consumption.  
The objective of this research was to examine our consumers’ perception of the high-quality 
ecologically produced meat and to ascertain to what extent this form of production and the 
quality of thus obtained pork can influence the pork market flows and be a regulator of this 
market.  
MATERIAL AND METHODS 
For the needs of this research, we conducted a survey of pork consumption and the ecological 
aspect of pig-breeding among the residents of the County of Osijek and Baranja. The precisely 
defined objective and tasks of the survey served as the basis for our questionnaire. The pollsters 
had an initial training, where they learned about the method of conducting the survey and the 
method of recording the collected answers and opinions. The total number of subjects was 100 
and the method of conducting the survey was filling out questionnaires. The questionnaire 
consisted of 15 questions pertaining to the purchasing and consumption of pork, as well as to the 
subjects’ perception of the aspects determining the market value of pork – primarily its quality, 
price and origin. More than two thirds of the total number of subjects belonged to the category of 
the so-called “most active population”, aged between 20 and 50 (Figure 1). 
 

Toluši ć, Z. et al.. Ecological production as a market regulator for the pork market. 
187
 
 
Figure 1. The subjects’ age. 
 
The results were processed on the basis of the whole sample, but also separately by the 
subjects’ gender and age. Survey results were processed with the statistical package Statistica for 
Windows 6.0. Some results are presented in the form of figures and tables, while the remainder is 
presented in textual form.  
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 
Bearing in mind the total population encompassed by this research, the results show that pork 
is a very important foodstuff in our population’s diet, since more than 80% of the subjects eat 
pork at least once a week. The percentage is lower among the female population than among the 
male population. Pork as a foodstuff is most frequently consumed by the subjects between 20 
and 40 years of age, while subjects under 20 years of age consume it the least frequently. When 
it comes to purchasing pork, more than 40% of our subjects buy it from private producers or 
produce it themselves, which is not surprising considering the fact that the County of Osijek and 
Baranja is the largest pork producer in Croatia and that the majority of this production comes 
from family farms.  
The survey produced some very interesting results regarding the main criterion for the 
purchasing of pork. For the majority of subjects, price is the main criterion for the decision to 
purchase pork (Figure 2).  
For more than 60% of female population quality is still the most important criterion for the 
purchasing of pork. The situation with the male population is the opposite – 65% of male 
consumers consider price more important than quality. If we take a look at the subjects’ age, we 
see that the majority of people under 30 years of age believe quality to be the most important 
criterion, while people over 40 place the strongest emphasis on the price of pork. It is also 
interesting that not a single subject mentioned the package as the most important criterion for the 
purchasing of pork.  
The consumers’ perception of the production and purchasing of pork affects the market flows 
to a great extent, which is precisely why we made it the point of the strongest emphasis in this 
research. As can be seen in Figure 3, more than 40% of the subjects pay no attention to the origin 
of the pork when purchasing it, i.e. the question whether the pork was produced in Croatia or 
imported is irrelevant to them. Male subjects pay more attention to this criterion than female 
subjects. Furthermore, this criterion for the purchasing of pork was of greater relevance to 
11%
25% 
17%
26%
10%
11%
<20 21–30 31–40 41–50 51–60 >60 

Acta agriculturae slovenica, suplement 1(avgust 2004). 
 
188 
persons of older age than to younger ones. Concerning the suitability of meat with regard to 
health, it is significant that almost a third of our subjects do not take it into account at all when 
purchasing pork. The percentage is even higher with the female population. If we also take a 
look at the subjects’ age, we see that the older age categories pay more attention to the suitability 
of meat with regard to health than the younger part of the population.  
 
 
 
Figure 2. The criterion for the selection of pork. 
 
 
 
Figure 3. The consumers’ perception of the origin of the meat and its suitability with regard to 
health. 
 
The ecological method of pork production is gaining more and more importance in the whole 
world, and lately in our country as well. The consequence of the effect this method of production 
has on animal welfare and improvement of meat quality is the higher price of meat obtained 
from ecologically bred pigs. The purchasing power of consumers participating at the market 
must therefore be taken into consideration when evaluating the consumption of ecologically 
produced pork. Table 1 shows survey results pertaining to the perception of consumers from the 
County of Osijek and Baranja regarding the ecological production and consumption of pork.  
0%
53%
47% 
quality price package
0 
10 
20 
30 
40 
50 
60 
70 
80 
yes no yes no yes no 
total female male
control of origin control of suitability with regard to health 

Toluši ć, Z. et al.. Ecological production as a market regulator for the pork market. 
189
Table 1. The consumers’ perception of the ecological production and consumption of pork 
 
Consumers’ 
perception 
Awareness of 
ecological pig-breeding 
Positive evaluation of 
ecologically 
produced meat 
Preparedness to pay a 
greater price for such 
products 
 All 
YES 99.00 67.00 52.00 
NO 1.00 33.00 48.00 
TOTAL 100.00 100.00 100.00 
 Female 
YES 97.92 72.92 52.08 
NO  2.08 27.08 47.92 
TOTAL 100.00 100.00 100.00 
 Male 
YES 100.00 61.54 51.92 
NO 0.00 38.46 48.08 
TOTAL 100.00 100.00 100.00 
 
The table clearly shows that almost the entire population is aware of the ecological method of 
pig and pork production, notwithstanding the subjects’ gender or age. Regarding their evaluation 
of this method of pig-breeding and pork production, almost a third of subjects do not consider it 
positive. The percentage is much higher among the male population than among the female 
population. If we compare the results based on the subjects’ age, it becomes evident that younger 
age categories are more devoted to ecological pig-breeding and pork production than the older 
population. However, the consumers’ readiness to pay a higher price for the meat of ecologically 
grown pigs at a given moment is definitely the most interesting part of the survey. Almost half of 
the subjects are not prepared to pay a higher price for such meat, even though they believe the 
meat produced by means of the ecologically acceptable method to be of higher quality. If we 
take a look at the subjects’ gender, we see that there are no significant differences in this issue 
between the male and the female part of the population. As far as age structure of the subjects is 
concerned, the percentage of subjects from younger categories of population (from 20 to 40 
years of age) who are ready to pay a higher price for ecologically produced pork is significantly 
higher than the same percentage of the population from the older age categories. The results 
stated above only confirm that, in addition to price and quality of the product, the purchasing 
power of the population and their traditional habits are very important market references that 
must not be neglected.  
CONCLUSION 
Based on the results of our research, we may conclude that pork is an important foodstuff in 
the diet of the residents of the County of Osijek and Baranja, since more than 80% of our 
subjects eat pork at least once a week. The fact that more than 40% of the subjects produce meat 
on their own family farms or buy it from private producers is also significant. Price, instead of 
quality, is still the most important criterion for the purchasing of meat. More than 40% of the 
subjects pay no attention to the origin of meat when purchasing it, and a third of them do not 
check whether the meat is suitable in terms of health. All of the results show certain aberrations 
with regard to the subjects’ gender and age. 
Although the entire population is aware of the ecological method of pig-breeding, almost a 
third of them do not consider this method of pork production positive. Half of the subjects are 

Acta agriculturae slovenica, suplement 1(avgust 2004). 
 
190 
not ready to pay a higher price for the meat produced by means of the ecologically acceptable 
method, in spite of the fact that they believe such meat to be of higher quality. These results 
concur with what we stated earlier about the price still being the most important market property 
with the strongest effect on the consumer. Due to this reason, at this moment ecologically 
produced pork does not have a notable effect on market flows and market regulation. In order to 
have an effect, certain requirements need to be fulfilled. This pertains primarily to the growth of 
the purchasing power of the population, ecological awareness and changes in the diet of our 
population towards the consumption of healthier foods.  
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