Petra Hencelová

The paper explores how Slovak consumers perceive the value of food, sold by different retail formats (especially farmers’ markets and supermarkets), in terms of the quality, price, and healthiness. The aim of this paper is to evaluate consumer perceptions regarding global and local types of retail stores where they buy food most frequently. In the study, the segmentation of consumers by generation, income, and type of residence is provided. From the methodological point of view, Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests are used to test hypotheses. According to the sample of respondents (n = 1,004), large-scale stores do not offer healthier and higher-quality food. This perception, however, varies based on the income of the consumer groups. On the other hand, respondents perceive that food sold at farmers’ markets is healthier and of higher quality than food in conventional stores. They do not perceive that food sold at farmers’ markets is cheaper than food in conventional stores.

The aim of the paper is to evaluate alternative food networks (farmers’ markets and community gardens) in Slovak towns in order to determine the views of town self-governing authorities. Data was collected through a questionnaire sent to representatives of towns. The results have shown that only 39% of towns regularly organise farmers’ markets but, overall, 52% of towns support or plan to support their organisation. There are a total of 40 community gardens in 17 towns, mainly in the west of Slovakia. The paper discusses the ways in which Slovak towns support alternative food networks.

The aim of the article is to identify the impact of the frequency of visits to community gardens in Slovakia with regard to how people perceived the importance of membership of community garden, how satisfied they were in general with community relations in the gardens, how they perceived improved social relations between people, and the influence of the community gardens on the members’ quality of life. A mixed methods approach was adopted comprising a questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews. Relationships were tested using Cramer’s V coefficient, the Mann-Whitney U test, and the Kruskal-Wallis test. The analysis of perceptions of the community garden members did not confirm the dependence between the frequency of visits to community gardens and the gardens’ impact on the CG members’ communities. A further finding was that members of community gardens positively rated the relationships in those communities. The authors conclude that there was no evidence of statistical relationships between the variables in their analysed data set. The frequency with which the members visited community garden did not affect the results.