Assessing restaurant purchasing managers' perception of protected geographical indication and buying behaviours: The case of İzmir

Mass production and marketing techniques developed to meet the growing population's food needs has brought additives, hormones, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and epidemic diseases in our daily life as well. Thus, the consumers become conscious of good food are tending toward options like Slow Food, Farm to Table, organic food, local food, and naturalism in gastronomy. At this point, the concept of geographical indication (GI), a global localization movement that guarantees the local products' future, becomes prominent. The objective of this research is to assess restaurant purchasing managers' level of knowledge about GIs and buying behaviours, to review the usage of registered food products in restaurants, and to examine pros and cons of these products. Within the scope of this study, face-to-face interviews are done with 21 restaurant purchasing managers from different districts of Izmir city. The findings are interpreted with descriptive analysis method and compared with literature. The results show that study participants have knowledge about GIs, but they do not trust in the logo usage based on existing legislations and the lack of controlling. 53 GI registered products are detected at the restaurants in question. The reasons behind the purchasing managers' preferences for registered local products are giving a quality image to business, increasing number of customers depend on quality and taste, supporting sustainable gastronomy and national economy. On the other side, the participants stay away from GIs come up with the problems like reliability, availability, seasonality, price, issues about local amateur suppliers and the restaurant itself. It is supposed that if customers don't have information regarding the product or in other words the existence of GIs, they would not search for it. So the first action to boost the demand for GIs is to promote and make them more available at the market. Key words: Protected Geographical Indications, Protected Designation of Origin, Origin, Local Food, Restaurant Food Purchasing