Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
The effect of the premium on organic food purchase is thus multi-dimensional. On the one
hand it is a barrier that makes purchases less likely, on the other it is a proximal indicator
associated with high quality food which might function as a motivator for a purchase - at
least for some people. People willing to pay a price for higher quality food seem not to be
scared off by the premium while people focussing on the budget are.
4. The importance of trust
Since the customers are not able to trace back their food through the whole production chain
- at least not without considerable effort - trust in the farmers, producers and vendors
becomes a key issue. This is especially the case for the organic food sector which is probably
more than most other sectors depending on its costumers' trust. Brom (2000) analyses trust
in the food sector and concludes that because of the de-coupling of food production and
food consumption trust in food needs to be institutionalized. Trust, usually built in personal
communication, needs to be established in another way. This means procedures of
governmental (or other independent institutional) control in the food section need to be
implemented to sustain consumer trust. Brom (2000) calls concerns about food safety (see
section 2.3) an indicator of losing trust. He furthermore claims that trust is a moral relation,
which means that there can only be trust in the food sector if the moral concerns of
consumers are taken seriously.
There are literally hundreds of studies indicating that trust in producers and certifying
institutions is one of the key determinants of organic food purchase (e.g., Krystallis &
Chryssohoidis, 2005; Padel & Foster, 2005; Harper & Makatouni, 2002). Mistrusting that
food marketed with organic food labels really is organic or that organic farming really
makes a difference with respect to the food attributes important for a person (e.g.,
environmental friendliness, animal welfare, food safety, better taste, etc.; see section 2.2) is
an almost certain death blow for any intention to buy organic food. Aarset et al. (2004)
demonstrated that distrust in organic food certification is common in many countries and
that this has a negative impact on attitudes towards organic food.
Following, a selection of factors will be described that have been shown to have a positive or
negative impact on trust. Giannakas (2002) demonstrated in a mathematical model that
keeping the amount of mislabelling conventional for organic produce low is vital for the
organic food market. The organic food market will collapse if too many cases of mislabelling
occur and customers' trust in organic labels is undermined. The importance of personal
relations shows in a study by Sirieix and Schaer (2005). They found that French customers
prefer to buy organic food on markets over supermarkets or health food stores because they
experience a closer connection to their vendor, sometimes even communicating directly to
the producer. Health food stores are trusted more than conventional supermarkets. In
supermarkets trust is put in the food label, not the supermarket. Very similar results are
presented by Essoussi and Zahaf (2009): They found in qualitative interviews that trust in
organic food and food labels is the lower the longer the marketing chain is and the bigger
the involved actors are. Direct marketing by local farmers receives the highest degree of
trust, as consumers have direct access to information. Speciality stores receive a medium
level of trust, because customer relations are perceived as being still rather close.
Supermarkets receive the lowest trust rating and trust is transferred to the food label
instead. Pivato et al. (2008) on the other hand found a relation between the perceived
corporate social responsibilities of a supermarket chain impact the amount of trust
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