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Consumer Response to Negative Media Information About Certified Organic Food Products

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Abstract

When fraudulent mislabelling of organic food products on the part of producers or label misapprehension on the part of consumers is revealed by mass media sources, this may have negative effects on consumers’ evaluations of and behaviour towards the purchase of certified organic food products. However, even if this poses a threat to the functioning of organic food labelling systems, there is a lack of empirical evidence. Therefore, drawing on behavioural models and literature on the impact of negative publicity on brand evaluations and consumer behaviour related to eco-labels, an experimental study was conducted in which members of the manipulation group watched a documentary containing exemplary information about fraud and misapprehension. The results show significant negative effects of the manipulation, both directly after exposure and 2 weeks later, on behavioural intentions, five attitudinal constructs, and trust in organic food labels. However, there were no significant effects on self-reported behaviour. Moreover, we found that the influence of the documentary on behavioural intentions was almost completely mediated by attitudes towards organic food products, whereas we did not find any significant mediator effects on self-reported behaviour.

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Notes

  1. In Germany, for example, the mislabelling of conventionally produced eggs as organic recently received extensive coverage in the media.

  2. http://www.oekolandbau.de/bio-siegel/ (last accessed June 6, 2015); as of March 31, 2015, the Biosiegel, which is complementary to the European Union (EU) organic farming regulation, was used by 4486 companies for 70 393 organic food products.

  3. In order to exclude distortions of estimated manipulation effects due to baseline differences in age, we re-estimated all direct manipulation effects on the outcome variables controlling for age. Results indicated that the re-estimated manipulation effects did not differ from those estimated without controlling for age.

  4. Endogenous constructs are variables that are predicted by at least one other construct in the path model.

  5. Because of the right-skewed distribution of self-reported behaviour 1, however, we replicated all analyses involving self-reported behaviour 1 throughout this article with a log-transformed version of self-reported behaviour 1. Log-transforming self-reported behaviour 1 dramatically decreased the skewness of the distribution. Yet the results of effect estimations did not change substantially in terms of significance or effect size when compared with the original estimations. We therefore chose to stick with the original models.

  6. See http://www.smartpls.de/documentation/srmr (last accessed June 4, 2015).

  7. Both these interpretations are supported by re-estimations of the two PLS models when considering only the intention to purchase more organic food or only the intention to pay attention to organic food (labels).

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor John Thøgersen for their valuable feedback and helpful comments.

Author Note

Christoph Emanuel Mueller is a senior researcher in the Department of Sociology at Saarland University, Germany. His research focuses on the evaluation of interventions in the area of environmental sociology as well as on the development and transfer of methods for causal impact evaluation. [Email: c.mueller@ceval.de]

Hansjörg Gaus is a senior researcher in the Department of Sociology at Saarland University and a visiting lecturer in consumer behaviour at Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany. His research interests include interventions to foster environment-friendly consumption, values research, and experiential consumption. [Email: h.gaus@ceval.de]

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Center for Evaluation (CEval), Saarland University, P.O. Box 151150, 66041, Saarbrücken, Germany

    Christoph Emanuel Müller & Hansjörg Gaus

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  1. Christoph Emanuel Müller
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Correspondence to Hansjörg Gaus.

Appendix

Appendix

Construct/item

Self-reported behaviour 1

“What percentage of the food you purchased in the last 2 weeks were organic products?”

“What percentage of the meat products you purchased in the last 2 weeks were organic products?”

“What percentage of the other animal-based food you purchased in the last 2 weeks (e.g., eggs, butter, and cheese) were organic products?”

“What percentage of the plant-based food you purchased in the last 2 weeks were organic products?”

Self-reported behaviour 2

“When purchasing food, I pay attention to it having been produced organically.”

“If I have a choice when purchasing food, I prefer organic products to products made by conventional means.”

“When I am purchasing food, it makes no difference to me whether it has been produced organically or not.” (r)

“I often purchase organic food.”

Behavioural intentions

“I will purchase organic products more often in future than I do at present.”

“When purchasing food in future, I will pay more attention to whether or not it has been produced organically.”

“When purchasing food in future, I will pay more attention to whether or not it has been certified with an organic label.”

Trust in organic food labels

“If a product has been certified with an organic label, I trust that it has a guaranteed organic production origin.”

“I do not believe that all certified organic products really are organic.” (r)

“Organic labels are important because they guarantee that the products concerned really do come from organic production.”

Perceived environmental impact

“Organic products are better for the environment than food produced conventionally.”

“Organic products are produced in an environmentally friendly way.”

“It doesn’t make any difference to the environment whether a product has an organic production origin or not.” (r)

“Buying organic products means protecting the environment.”

Perceived impact on human health

“I believe that food with an organic label is healthier than conventional food.”

“It doesn’t make any difference to your health whether food has an organic production origin or not.” (r)

“Anyone who sets store by healthy nutrition should give organic food preference over conventional food.”

Perceived impact on animal welfare

“I believe that purchasing meat products with an organic label makes a contribution to improving the conditions under which animals are farmed.”

“I am convinced that animals in organic farming facilities have a better life than animals from conventional farming.”

“In my opinion, meat products with an organic label come from a farming facility in which the animals do not have to suffer so much pain.”

Perceived degree of naturalness

“Organic products do not contain any artificial additives.”

“Organic products are free of chemical and hormonal residues.”

“Organic products contain only natural ingredients.”

Perceived quality of organic food

“Organic products are of high quality.”

“Anyone who sets store by high-quality nutrition should purchase organic products.”

“Organic labels are a sign of high-quality food.”

Note. (r) = Item was recoded for analyses.

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Müller, C.E., Gaus, H. Consumer Response to Negative Media Information About Certified Organic Food Products. J Consum Policy 38, 387–409 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10603-015-9299-z

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