OrganicPlus values and their relevance to consumers: First results from the CORE FCP project

Summary

The CORE funded project Farmer Consumer Partnerships (FCP) aims to develop innovative generic communication arguments that can strengthen the link between producers and consumers in the European organic sector. The aim of this conference presentation was to present some first results of the project.
Ethical concerns and values important to various stakeholders of organic food and farming were contrasted with the new European Regulation (EC) 834/2007 to identify organicPlus values that go beyond minimal organic requirements. An increasing number of individual companies and some certification bodies have introduced activities concerning ethical attributes of organic production, but no comprehensive and accessible framework that provides practical support and tools for the verification and communication of organicPlus arguments could be identified.
Subsequently, seven different organic plus attributes and the product price were tested with about 1200 consumers in the project partner countries (AT, DE, CH, IT, UK) in May to July 2008 by means of an Information-Display-Matrix (IDM). The results show that a considerable proportion of consumers appears willing to pay a premium for organic products with ethical attributes. Communication should focus on attributes that are most important to consumers, such as ‘animal welfare’, ‘regional production’ and ‘fair prices to farmers’.
Further research in the project will investigate how these attributes can be communicated and will explore the consumers’ willingness to pay.