Within the European-funded research project CORE Organic Farmer Consumer Partnership, we tested selected OrganicPlus arguments displayed on organic egg packages in consumer choice experiments in the five study countries of Austria, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The focus was on investigating consumers’ preferences and willingness to pay for the selected OrganicPlus arguments: “from the respective country”, “from the respective region”, “highest animal welfare standards” and “fair prices for our organic farmers: 20cents extra”. Furthermore, the objective was to determine causal relationships between the preferences observed and the relevant characteristics of the consumers by means of a questionnaire-based survey. The data was analysed with multinomial logit models.
As hypothesised, organic egg packages displaying OrganicPlus arguments were more preferred by organic consumers than organic eggs without OrganicPlus arguments. However, consumer preferences varied between the arguments and between countries. The argument, “from the respective region” was the most preferred argument in all countries, except in Austria, where it was ranked after “highest animal welfare standards” and “from the respective country”. The argument “highest animal welfare standards” was the most preferred argument in Austria, while it was ranked after the argument “from the respective region” in Germany and Switzerland. The argument “fair prices for our organic farmers: 20 pence/20 cents/50 Rappen extra” was significantly preferred among German and Swiss consumers, although the argument was less relevant than “from the respective region” and “highest animal welfare standards”.
The willingness to pay for OrganicPlus arguments varied considerably between the countries, however, it was highest for “from the respective region” in most study countries. Causal relationships were found between consumers’ attitudes and their preferences for some of the OrganicPlus arguments. Besides this, socio-demographic characteristics, purchase patterns related to organic food as well as consumers’ social commitment all had an impact on consumers’ preferences for OrganicPlus arguments
