Towards a Framework for Understanding Fairtrade Purchase Intention in the Mainstream Environment of Supermarkets

© 2014, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. Despite growing interest in ethical consumer behaviour research, ambiguity remains regarding what motivates consumers to purchase ethical products. While researchers largely attribute the growth of ethical consumerism to an increase in ethical consumer concerns and motivations, widened distribution (mainstreaming) of ethical products, such as fairtrade, questions these assumptions. A model that integrates both individual and societal values into the theory of planned behaviour is presented and empirically tested to challenge the assumption that ethical consumption is driven by ethical considerations alone. Using data sourced from fairtrade shoppers across the UK, structural equation modelling suggests that fairtrade purchase intention is driven by both societal and self-interest values. This dual value pathway helps address conceptual limitations inherent in the underlying assumptions of existing ethical purchasing behaviour m odels and helps advance understanding of consumers’ motivation to purchase ethical products

Intuitive and explicit reactions towards "new" food technologies: attitude strength and familiarity

Purpose - New food technologies are of increasing importance but not a lot of research into how people react to these technologies has been conducted. The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into how implicit measurements in addition to explicit measurements give insight into how well an attitude towards a food concept, in relation to its familiarity, is predictive for behaviour. Design/methodology/approach - An implicit measurement (EAST) and an explicit questionnaire were used to investigate people's attitudes and attitude strength towards two food technologies (genetic modification and organic production). Correlations between the two measurements were calculated to determine whether familiar food technologies are more predictive for behaviour than relatively unfamiliar food technologies. Findings - Implicit measurements showed negative associations with genetic modification. Explicit measurements showed neutral associations with genetic modification. In contrast, implicit and explicit measurements showed positive associations with organic production. When a food technology is well known (e.g. organic production), significant correlations between the two measurements were present suggesting that attitudes were predictive for behaviour. In contrast, when a food technology is not well known (e.g. genetic modification), significant correlations were not present suggesting that attitudes were not predictive for behaviour. Originality/value - This is the first study to examine the relation between intuitive and explicit reactions in relation with the novelty of food technologies

Categorizing genetically modified food products: Effects of labelling on information processing

Purpose – the purpose of this paper is to provide insight into whether gm-labelling leads to different processing behaviour of food stimuli compared to when products are not labelled.design/methodology/approach – a task was designed to investigate people's categorization behaviour as a function of information provided. In two studies each participant was randomly allocated to either the experimental “gm-labelled condition”, or the control “non-labelled condition”.findings – different processing strategies and different characteristics are used to judge products that are labelled as genetically modified or not. Gm labelling of foods is interpreted to induce analytical processing of information and therefore the products are classified relatively more often on the basis of verifiable categorization criteria compared to when they were not labelled as gm. When products are not labelled as gm, information is more likely to be automatically processed and non-verifiable categorization criteria are used.originality/value – this is the first study to examine the processes that labelling as gm brings about

Acceptance of genetically modified foods: the relation between technology and evaluation.

This study investigates why consumers accept different genetically modified food products to different extents. The study shows that whether food products are genetically modified or not and whether they are processed or not are the two important features that affect the acceptance of food products and their evaluation (in terms of perceived healthiness, naturalness, necessity and tastiness). The extent to which these evaluation attributes and acceptance of a product are affected by genetic modification or processing depends on whether the product is negatively affected by the other technology: Any technological change to a 'natural' product (when nonprocessed products are genetically modified or when non-genetically modified products are processed) affect evaluation and acceptance stronger than a change to an technologically adapted product (when processed products are also genetically modified or vice versa). Furthermore, evaluation attributes appear to mediate the effects of genetic modification and processing on acceptance