Sustainability labels on food products: consumer motivation, understanding and use
Open accessAbstract
This study investigates the relationship between consumer motivation, understanding and use of sustainability labels on food products (both environmental and ethical labels), which are increasingly appearing on food products. Data was collected by means of an online survey implemented in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and Poland, with a total sample size of 4408 respondents. Respondents expressed medium high to high levels of concern with sustainability issues at the general level, but lower levels of concern in the context of concrete food product choices. Understanding of the concept of sustainability was limited, but understanding of four selected labels (Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, Carbon Footprint, and Animal Welfare) was better, as some of them seem to be self-explanatory. The results indicated a low level of use, no matter whether use was measured as self-reported use of different types of information available on food labels or as use inferred from the results of a choice-based conjoint analysis. Hierarchical regression indicated that use is related to both motivation and understanding, and that both motivation, understanding and use are affected by demographic characteristics, human values as measured by the Schwartz value domains, and country differences. The results imply that sustainability labels currently do not play a major role in consumers’ food choices, and future use of these labels will depend on the extent to which consumers’ general concern about sustainability can be turned into actual behaviour.
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There is a lack of evidence that consumers can leverage complex supply chain transparency information and assert their power through informed decision-making and preferences.
“Thus, there is a lack of evidence that consumers can leverage complex supply chain transparency information and assert their power through informed decision-making and preferences (Egels-Zandén and Hansson, 2016;Grunert et al., 2014;Janßen and Langen, 2017).”
From Making deforestation risk visible. Discourses on bovine leather supply chain in Brazil (2020) · cites this paper as Grunert et al., 2014
The Introduction describes food labels as a way to increase transparency along the food chain and enable informed choices. The Discussion reports that consumers' use of those labels was low and that general sustainability concern did not reliably translate into food choices. The study addresses sustainability labels, however, not consumers' ability to use complex supply-chain transparency information generally or to assert power through their preferences. The supplied passages have no page numbers. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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- Authors
- Grunert, K. G., Hieke, S., & Wills, J.
- Affiliations
- Aarhus University (DK)
- European Food Information Council (BE)
- Corresponding author
- Grunert, Klaus G.
- Venue
- Food Policy
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2014-02
- Volume
- 44
- Pages
- 177-189
- ISSN
- 0306-9192 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1992848799
- Cited by
- 1,334
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 157 · 2025: 141 · 2024: 109 · 2023: 137 · 2022: 125 · 2021: 150 · 2020: 137 · 2019: 110 · 2018: 84 · 2017: 66 · 2016: 63 · 2015: 40 · 2014: 14
- FWCI
- 61.04
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Food Policy (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Rainforest Alliance
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Consumer Attitudes and Food Labeling
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Organic Food and Agriculture
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Environmental Sustainability in Business
- Keywords
- sustainability labels, food products, consumer motivation, consumer understanding, label use, eco-labels, fair trade, Rainforest Alliance, animal welfare labels, sustainability challenges, consumer behavior, cross-national comparison
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