Impact of Country of Origin and Organic Certification on Consumer Food Choices in Developed and Emerging Economies. Abstract for EMAC 2018

Summary

To investigate the influence of COO on consumers’ food choices in the presence of other quality cues, a choice-based conjoint (CBC) experiment was conducted in Germany, France, China and Thailand. In each country, a sample of about 1000 consumers participated after being screened for responsibility for the household’s shopping, consumption of the case product, and knowledge of organic food. The overall design is a full factorial with four COOs, three different organic label conditions and three price levels. The 36 different choice options
were bundled in 12 choice sets of three alternatives, which were presented in random order.
The study revealed a general tendency to prefer imported food products from economically developed over products from less developed countries. In Europe, this effect cannot be disentangled from a preference for nearby COOs. However, in Asia, distance to the COO seems less important. Country image linked to level of economic development seems to matter more.