Consumer attitudes towards sustainability attributes on food labels

Concerns about climate change and the general status of the environment have increased expectation that food products have sustainability credentials, and that these can be verified. There are significant and increasing pressures in key export markets for information on Greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity of products throughout its life-cycle. How this information is conveyed to consumers is a key issue. Labelling is a common method of communicating certain product attributes to consumers that may influence their choices. In a choice experiment concerning fruit purchase decisions, this study estimates willingness to pay for sustainability attributes by consumers in Japan and the UK. The role of label presentation format is investigated: text only, text and graphical, and graphical only. Results indicate that sustainability attributes influence consumers’ fruit purchase decisions. Reduction of carbon in fruit production is shown to be the least valued out of sustainability attributes considered. Differences are evident between presentation formats and between countries, with increased nutrient content being the most sensitive to format and country while carbon reduction is the most insensitive and almost always valued the least.

[1]  Stéphane Robin,et al.  Do consumers not care about biotech foods or do they just not read the labels , 2002 .

[2]  D. McFadden.  Conditional logit analysis of qualitative choice behavior , 1972 .

[3]  David A. Hensher,et al.  The Mixed Logit Model: the State of Practice and Warnings for the Unwary , 2001 .

[4]  I. Krinsky,et al.  On Approximating the Statistical Properties of Elasticities , 1986 .

[5]  John M. Rose,et al.  Stated choice experimentation, contextual influences and food choice: A case study , 2008 .

[6]  R. Nayga,et al.  Consumer preferences and willingness to pay for grass-fed beef: Empirical evidence from in-store experiments , 2010 .

[7]  W. Adamowicz,et al.  Labelling Genetically Modified Food: Heterogeneous Consumer Preferences and the Value of Information , 2005 .

[8]  Denzil G. Fiebig,et al.  The Generalized Multinomial Logit Model: Accounting for Scale and Coefficient Heterogeneity , 2010, Mark. Sci..

[9]  S. Anders,et al.  Consumer Choice and Health: The Importance of Health Attributes for Retail Meat Demand in Canada , 2010 .

[10]  John M. Rose,et al.  Design Efficiency for Non-Market Valuation with Choice Modelling: How to Measure it, What to Report and Why , 2008 .

[11]  Frank Asche,et al.  MEASURING CONSUMER PREFERENCES FOR ECOLABELED SEAFOOD: AN INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON , 2001 .

[12]  Moshe Ben-Akiva,et al.  Discrete Choice Analysis: Theory and Application to Travel Demand , 1985 .

[13]  Jordan J. Louviere,et al.  Quick and easy choice sets: Constructing optimal and nearly optimal stated choice experiments , 2005 .

[14]  Kynda R. Curtis,et al.  Consumer Attitudes Toward Genetically Modified Foods in Beijing, China , 2002 .

[15]  John M. Rose,et al.  Applied Choice Analysis: A Primer , 2005 .

[16]  Morten Raun Mørkbak,et al.  The Impact of Information on Consumer Preferences for Different Animal Food Production Methods , 2009 .

[17]  Gregory L. Poe,et al.  Simple Computational Methods for Measuring the Difference of Empirical Distributions: Application to Internal and External Scope Tests in Contingent Valuation , 2001 .

[18]  William H. Kaye-Blake,et al.  Respondents’ Ignoring of Attribute Information in a Choice Modelling Survey , 2009 .

[19]  Jutta Roosen,et al.  Demand for Beef from Cattle Administered Growth Hormones or Fed Genetically Modified Corn: A Comparison of Consumers in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States , 2003 .

[20]  P. Nelson.  Information and Consumer Behavior , 1970, Journal of Political Economy.

[21]  M. Darby,et al.  Free Competition and the Optimal Amount of Fraud , 1973, The Journal of Law and Economics.

[22]  D. Romano,et al.  Consumer expectations, liking and willingness to pay for specialty foods : Do sensory characteristics tell the whole story? , 2006 .

[23]  M. Loureiro,et al.  Consumers’ valuation of nutritional information: A choice experiment study , 2009 .

[24]  Rolf Wüstenhagen,et al.  The influence of eco‐labelling on consumer behaviour – results of a discrete choice analysis for washing machines , 2006 .

[25]  Sylvie Issanchou,et al.  Effect of fibre information on consumer willingness to pay for French baguettes , 2009 .

[26]  Kristine M. Grimsrud,et al.  Consumer Response to Genetically Modified Food Products in Japan , 2003, Agricultural and Resource Economics Review.

[27]  Kenneth Train,et al.  Mixed Logit with Bounded Distributions of Correlated Partworths , 2005 .

[28]  F. Norwood,et al.  Consumer Demand for a Ban on Antibiotic Drug Use in Pork Production , 2006 .

[29]  Jill J. McCluskey,et al.  CONSUMER PREFERENCES AND WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR FOOD LABELING: A DISCUSSION OF EMPIRICAL STUDIES , 2003 .

[30]  K. Train.  Discrete Choice Methods with Simulation , 2003 .

[31]  I. Krinsky,et al.  On Approximating the Statistical Properties of Elasticities: A Correction , 1990 .

[32]  J. Barreiro-Hurlé,et al.  Is there a market for functional wines? Consumer preferences and willingness to pay for resveratrol-enriched red wine , 2008 .

[33]  Jose Maria Gil,et al.  Risk perception and consumer willingness to pay for certified beef in Spain , 2007 .

[34]  René Lion,et al.  Front-of-pack nutrition labelling: Testing effectiveness of different nutrition labelling formats front-of-pack in four European countries , 2008, Appetite.

[35]  J. Louviere,et al.  The Role of the Scale Parameter in the Estimation and Comparison of Multinomial Logit Models , 1993 .

[36]  Marco Vassallo,et al.  Country-Wise Differences in Perception of Health-Related Messages in Cereal-Based Food Products , 2010 .