Food labels: consumer’s information or consumer’s confusion

Abstract

This paper synthesizes findings of published research on the impact of food labels on consumers’ willingness to pay and focuses on the consumers’ rationales when deciding to purchase organic food. The first issue refers to one aspect of the proliferation of quality labels in the agro-food sector: the coexistence of two signs on one product and the consequences of this coexistence on the value of each sign. In the context of the competition between national brands and private labels through public quality labels, it has been shown that the willingness to pay for a quality sign decreases when it is combined with another one on the same product. The second concern is a two-fold issue: the characterization of “organics food consumers” in terms of socio-demographics characteristics and consumers’ purchasing motives. The more consistent result is that consumers with higher levels of education are more likely to purchase organic products. The three main reasons for buying organic products are considerations related to health, product quality, and environmental protection. The proliferation of signs about quality is a topical issue related to the emergence of sustainability issues that highlight labels linked to agro-ecological practices. The question of the effectiveness of the informational role of labels remains relevant.