Informationsverhalten der Konsumenten und ethische Werte ökologischer Lebensmittel

Summary

Due to globalisation and growing anonymity of trade with organic products, farmers in Europe are under pressure to lower their production standards in order to keep up with world-wide competition. On the other hand consumers increasingly criticise food products which were produced under unsatisfactory social and environmental conditions.
The arising question is whether there is a demand for organic food with additional ethical values in order to create possibilities of product differentiation with respect to ethical values. This paper investigates various ethical communication arguments and the price from the consumers’ perspective by means of an Information-Display-Matrix in five European countries. It turns out that ‘regional production’ and ‘animal welfare’ are the most important ethical arguments.