Verbraucherpräferenzen bezüglich der Futtermittelherkunft im Öko-Landbau

Summary

Due to an increasing organic animal production and a deficit of local feed, a high amount of organic feed, especially protein feed, is imported to Germany. On the other side, there is a growing demand for local organic products. If organic consumers also prefer complete local supply chains, there would be a market niche for organic food products produced with local feed. 597 organic consumers were interviewed and participated in a Discrete-Choice (DC) experiment with organic eggs, organic milk and organic pork cutlets. The results were analysed with Mixed-Logit Models.
The results confirmed a strong consumer preference for feed origin labeling. Organic consumers preferred local feed origin over German feed origin. Providing consumers with additional information about organic feed import to Germany let to a higher preference for organic food products produced with local feed. Therefore, a market introduction of organic food products produced with local feed could be a promising market opportunity, especially for small scale farmers. The results showed that aspects as short transport distances, support of local economy and agriculture as well as traceability and transparence are well suited for communicating the additional value of such products.