Welcome to the (label) jungle? Analyzing how consumers deal with intra-sustainability label trade-offs on food

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

Sustainability labels provide consumers with information about the production process, but the number of specialized labels is increasing rapidly. Different label combinations on one product can lead to trade-offs for consumers since sustainability dimensions, e.g., animal welfare and climate impact, may conflict. Consumers may face a combination of sustainability labels where not all characteristics are positive. The likelihood of a combination of positive and negative labels is particularly high when certain labels become mandatory. It is unclear how this influences the decision-making of consumers. This study analyzes the effect of different multi-level sustainability labels: animal welfare label, climate label, and a binary label (organic), and a nutritional label: the Nutri-Score on two food products. We measured the willingness to pay (WTP) for chicken breast and whole milk for different label combinations using a discrete choice experiment with 985 German consumers. Our results provide first indications that the presence of a sustainability label does not diminish the marginal utility of another sustainability label and that the effects of a negative label on the WTP cannot be compensated by a positive label. Consumers can handle two different types of labels at the same time and seem to be able to cope even with contradictory information in a trade-off situation between different sustainability dimensions. For manufacturers, this means that they should avoid scoring negatively on any sustainability dimension.

Original languageEnglish
Article number104746
JournalFood Quality and Preference
Volume104
Number of pages13
ISSN0950-3293
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 03.2023
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors

Recently viewed

Researchers

  1. Stefan Heidenreich

Activities

  1. Die demokratische Funktion des Wettbewerbs
  2. Chemical Innovation Exchange - CIEX 2019
  3. American Association of Applied Linguistics (AAAL) (Externe Organisation)
  4. Metaphern zu Medikamentenströmen in der Umwelt, von Bente Ohrt & mit Kai Niebert
  5. Fakultät Management und Technologie (Organisation)
  6. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education (Fachzeitschrift)
  7. Die Europäische Union nach Lissabon
  8. Banal Militarism – theoretical and empirical considerations
  9. 35th Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium - HWRS 2014
  10. Dekanat Fakultät S (Organisation)
  11. 5. Workshop zur Sozialwissenschaftlichen Klimaanpassungsforschung - 2011
  12. 11th Annual Colloquium of the International Association of Hydro-Environment Research and Engineering-Baden-Württemberg - 2010
  13. Einführungsvortrag im Rahmen von Teil 2 des Symposiums "Representations of the 'Other' - The Visual Anthropology of Pierre Bourdieu"
  14. Material(ität) und Klang(lichkeit) – Auf der Suche nach einer Neubestimmung musikästhetischer Grundbegriffe
  15. Workshop des Forums Ökologisch-Soziale Marktwirtschaft zur „Umsetzung eines Effizienzmarktes – Wie muss ein optimales Anreizsystem ausgestaltet werden?“ - FÖS 2013
  16. "Will I call the doctor?" Offers across regional varieties of English (Universität Hannover, invited talk)
  17. Musik der Zeit. Gewaltexzesse im deutschen Gangsta Rap anhand des Beispiels Kollegah
  18. FROM WHERE I STAND. Feminist Art/Writing: Genealogies, Subjectivities, and Critique
  19. Reflexive Demokratie: eine metapolitische Reaktion auf die dritte demokratische Transformation