Consumersâ preferences for ethical values of organic food

K. Zander; U. Hamm

Consumersâ preferences for ethical values of organic food

In: Ethical futures: bioscience and food horizons

Authors:

K. Zander

K. Zander Agricultural and Food Marketing, University of Kassel, Steinstrasse 19, 37213 Witzenhausen, Germany; k.zander@uni-kassel.de

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U. Hamm

U. Hamm Agricultural and Food Marketing, University of Kassel, Steinstrasse 19, 37213 Witzenhausen, Germany; k.zander@uni-kassel.de

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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 400â405

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.3920/9789086866731_068

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Consumers increasingly criticise food that is produced under unsatisfactory social and environmental conditions. From the very beginning, organic food production included ethical aspects and did not only care for the environment and animal welfare but also for social aspects of people affected by the organic supply chain. With the organic sector gaining additional market share, products from organic mass production become more and more important and competition is predominantly a question of price. Ethical values going beyond the standards of the EU regulation on organic farming are no longer features of large parts of organic production. Against this background, the question arises of whether there is a demand and an increased willingness to pay for âethicalâ organic food. This would create possibilities of product and market differentiation with respect to ethical products. This paper investigates various ethical communication arguments from consumersâ perspective by means of an Information-Display- Matrix (IDM) in five European countries. The IDM is a process tracing method aiming at monitoring the information acquisition and purchase behaviour of consumers. Seven different ethical attributes and the product price were tested with about 1200 consumers. The most important ethical attributes turned out to be âanimal welfareâ, âregional productionâ and âfair prices for farmersâ. These attributes were followed by âproduct priceâ, indicating that consumers tend to prefer cheaper products over ethical products with attributes like âcare farmingâ, âsocial criteria of productionâ, âprotection of biodiversityâ and âcultural aspectsâ. There are only minor differences between the countries regarding the order of the most important attributes. Altogether, the results allow the conclusion that a large share of consumers of organic food would be willing to pay a price premium for âethicalâ products.

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Ethical futures: bioscience and food horizons

E-Book ISBN:: 9789086866731

Publisher:: Wageningen Academic

Print Publication Date:: 30 Oct 2009

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- Life Sciences

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Consumersâ preferences for ethical values of organic food

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Ethical futures: bioscience and food horizons

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Consumersâ preferences for ethical values of organic food