Are consumers willing to pay a price premium for specific organic logos?

Summary

Since July 2010, prepacked organic food produced in the EU must be labelled with the new mandatory EU logo for organic food. However, there is a long tradition of voluntary organic certification logos in most European countries. In this paper we analyse the willingness-to pay (WTP) of European consumers for products with different voluntary organic certification logos to make recommendations for actors in the organic sector. Data was collected by means of choice experiments with 1,997 consumers of organic food in five EU countries, based on which a number of random parameter logit models were estimated. According to our results, there were great differences between the tested logos regarding the price premium that consumers were willing to pay compared to organic products without a logo. One to two logos with a considerable additional WTP could be identified per country. It is recommended to display these logos in addition to the mandatory EU logo, at least in a transition period. The additional WTP for the old voluntary EU logo was close or equal to zero in all study countries except Italy. For the new EU logo, it is therefore recommended to provide public financial support for communication campaigns on the new logo.