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The purpose of the present study is to examine the effect of organic food certification labels of different third-party verification institutions on consumers' choice of organic food in terms of willingness-to-pay (WTP) using cue utilization theory.

The study conducted an experiment in which organic rice and organic certification labels were presented to 360 valid participants.

With different organic rice labels issued by various third-party verification institutions, including (1) foundations, (2) associations, (3) university certification centers and (4) private businesses, results indicate that consumers had different preferences and WTP for certain labels. The institutions preferred organic food labels issued by non-profit organizations. In addition, consumers showed different WTP as a result of different purchase motivations (e.g. health vs environmental protection).

These results imply that consumers might not have confidence in the organic labels issued by associations and private institutions. Therefore, different types of certification institutions can have significantly different impacts on consumers' WTP. The study further proposes that the extrinsic attributes of food products (i.e. the cues used in making a purchase decision) must be incongruent with the image of third-party certification institutions in order to develop more efficient communication of product information and to encourage consumers to give positive comments regarding organic food.

Organic food consumption is growing, increasing the need for studies investigating the importance of organic certification labels in emerging countries. The research aims to identify the influence of certification labels and fresh organic produce categories (greenery, vegetable or fruit) on consumer trust and purchase intention.

An online experimental survey 3 × 3 was administered among 349 Brazilian consumers. Certification label and fresh organic produce category were designated as independent variables and manipulated to explore consumer trust and purchase intention. The authors performed a multivariate covariance analysis (MANCOVA) to analyze the data.

Results show that the certification label does not directly affect the dependent variables. It acts as a moderator and indirectly affects both consumer trust and purchase intention. Moreover, depending on the fresh organic produce category considered (greenery, vegetable or fruit), consumer trust changes. Sociodemographic characteristics, age and household income are also important. Finally, the greater the purchase frequency (the main predictor of the model), the greater the purchase intention and consumer trust.

The study contributes to deepen and expand studies involving organic food and to pave the way for future studies that aim to investigate the importance of certification labels of organic foods for consumers.

Organic food represents the fastest growing sector in the food market, with outstanding performance in both production and sales. However, existing studies on organic food have lacked a strong theoretical foundation. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships among purchase intention and the properties, certification mechanisms, retail channels, and prices of organic food from multiple theoretical perspectives.

Using a rigorous sampling design, 507 valid questionnaires collected from consumers at four well-known organic food markets, and the hypotheses were tested based on a linear structural equation model.

The results of the structural equation model analysis showed the following: consumer attitudes toward organic food labeling/certification institutions had a positive impact on the trust in food labeling; channel dependence positively influenced the relational embeddedness in a channel; the effect of the nutritional value of organic food on environmental protection also had a positive impact on attitudes toward organic foods; attitudes toward trust in the organic label, relational embeddedness in a channel, and attitudes toward organic foods had a positive impact on consumer purchase intentions; and in relation to low-price scenarios, consumers required more confidence to purchase higher-priced goods, meaning that the relational embeddedness in a channel exerted more influence on purchase intentions. By contrast, compared to the high-price scenarios, consumers tended to choose lower priced goods based on personal preferences, e.g., making the purchase decision based on trust in the organic label and attitudes toward organic food.

The contributions of this study include the following: the relationships among the variables were investigated comprehensively from multiple theoretical perspectives; and the results can help the government and the organic food industry to understand their respective responsibilities in promoting organic food to reduce the waste of resources, in which the government can provide basic information on organic food, e.g., a certification mechanism and related definitions, while the organic food industry provides specific knowledge about organic foods, e.g., product features.

The paper aims to investigate existing research in factors impacting organic food purchase with special reference to eco-labels and identify the relative influence of various determinants.

A conceptual framework is proposed of organic food buying behaviour after analysing a sample of 154,072 consumers reported in 91 research studies from 2001–2020. The factors are categorised into four categories on the basis of relatedness. In addition, the factors were analysed based on time, region and national economic status.

The impact of consumer psychographics, socio-demographic and product-related factor categories were found to be more pronounced compared to supply-related factor category. The results show that among individual factors like health concern, environment concern, knowledge and awareness, eco-labels and price followed by trust in organic food are the most important factors in organic food purchase. The findings suggest that eco-labels increase trust in organic food by reducing information asymmetry in consumers. However, there were differences in perception and factors importance between high-income economies and emerging economies.

The study is unique, as it analyses secondary research based on criteria of high-income economies and emerging economies. The conceptual framework can also be incorporated further into different cognitive models like the theory of planned behaviour.

This paper aims to investigate the determinants of organic food buying behaviour in an emerging economy like India, where organic food yet has low market share in spite of its potential. Using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) as the underlying basis, it attempts to explain the effect of attitude, subjective norms and the perceived behaviour control (PBC) on buying intention towards organic food among respondents in Delhi-National capital region, India. Additionally, it attempts to discriminate functional and constructive attitudes.

A quantitative questionnaire survey approach was used on 306 respondents and multiple linear regression was used to validate the research model.

Attitudes and PBC have a significant positive impact on the intention to purchase organic food. This paper found subjective norms to be weak and barely significant to intention. The results conclude that health motives, past purchase behaviour, knowledge, affordability and trust in organic certification label are the main facilitators in organic food purchase. Primarily, the respondents see buying organic food regularly as being of value and enjoyable to them. A more favourable appearance vs conventional food was negatively related to behavioural intention.

This research could aid all stakeholders in the organic food sector, particularly emerging economies like India where the organic market is still nascent. It could be an essential driver to improve customer involvement and thus aid them in the decision-making process to choose organic food over conventional food. It also attempts to establish the usability of TPB in assessing functional attitudes based on constructive attitudes for organic food purchase.

Unlike some developed countries, Chinese food safety certification system is multi-level including organic/green/hazard-free certifications. The purpose of this paper is to assess consumers’ preferences for tomatoes carrying these different labels.

Data used in this study came from choice experiments (CEs) conducted in Shandong province, China. Based on experiment data, a random parameter logit model was established to analyze consumers’ willingness-to-pay (WTP).

Consumers’ WTP for organic tomatoes was higher than that for hazard-free and green-certified tomatoes. Furthermore, consumers’ WTP for the European Union (EU) organic label was higher than that for the Chinese organic label, whereas a non-significant difference existed between the levels of consumers’ WTP for hazard-free and green-certified tomatoes. Consumers with different food safety risk perception (FSRP) had large differences in WTP, whereas those with varying environmental awareness (ENAW) had similar levels of WTP.

This contribution is the first research which focuses on consumers’ WTP for EU organic label, Chinese organic label, green label, or hazard-free label on tomato through CEs in China. Furthermore, the influence of consumers’ FSRP and ENAW on their preference was analyzed through a random parameter logit model.

The purpose of this paper is to determine consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for tomatoes carrying different organic labels.

The data were collected from 878 randomly selected consumers in Shandong Province, China, using the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak auction experiment. The authors used the multivariate probit (MVP) model to analyze the factors influencing consumer preferences.

Results indicated that consumers’ WTP for tomatoes carrying the European Union (EU) organic label was significantly higher than those carrying the Chinese organic label. However, no significant difference was found between consumers’ WTP for tomatoes carrying the EU organic label and that for tomatoes carrying both Chinese and EU labels. The results of the MVP model analysis demonstrated that the consumers with different individual characteristics had heterogeneous preferences for organic labels. Food safety consciousness and organic knowledge both had positive effects on consumers’ WTP, meanwhile, environmental awareness had no prominent effect on consumer preferences.

This research is of academic value and of value to policy makers and suppliers. To satisfy diverse market requirements, governments, and manufacturers should consider consumer preferences for different certification labels in strategy development.

With the introduction of the mandatory European Union (EU) organic logo for all organic food products in 2010, the European Commission aimed at fostering the internal organic food market. This needs consumers’ knowledge of the logo. According to earlier research consumers’ knowledge of the EU organic logo is low. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to elicit consumers’ attitudes towards organic certification and labelling and to develop recommendations on how to improve consumers’ knowledge of the EU organic logo.

By means of an online survey with 3,000 participants in six European countries, knowledge of the logo and attitudes towards organic farming and European labelling, as well as organic food purchase behaviour and socio-demographic indicators were elicited. Factor and cluster analysis based on several statements on the test persons’ attitudes towards organic farming and corresponding EU legislation were conducted in order to segment consumers.

The results indicate that knowledge of the logo is low. Only about 15 per cent of all respondents knew its meaning. Four clusters of consumers could be identified: “Committed organics”, “Pragmatic organics”, “Organic sceptics” and Organic disinterested’. With reference to the EU organic legislation’s aim of promoting the organic market, particularly “Organic sceptics” should be addressed by emphasising the trustworthiness of the organic certification and labelling system.

Segmenting consumers according to their attitude towards organic farming, its labelling and certification allows for targeted and efficient communication and organic market development.

The purpose of this paper is to consider whether UK consumers recognise and trust organic certification logos and whether the presence of these logos on a product increases consumer willingness to pay for that product.

To ascertain the reaction of UK consumers to organic certification logos commonly used in the UK, this study makes use of three methods: focus groups, a consumer survey and a willingness to pay experiment (choice experiment).

These three approaches reveal that UK consumers associate certain benefits with organic foods but are generally unaware of how the industry is regulated. With regards to trust of the logo, the standards they think underlie the logo and the inspection system that they think is associated with the logo, UK consumers rate the Soil Association and Organic Farmers and Growers logos more highly than the EU logo or products labelled with just the word “organic”. They appear willing to pay a premium for the additional assurance that these two logos provide, suggesting that where they are recognised, certification logos are valued.

To the authors' knowledge, no previous studies exist on whether UK consumers recognise and trust different organic certification logos. These findings show that where such logos are recognised they can help to give some assurance to the UK consumer and this is reflected in a willingness to pay a premium for foods labelled with the Soil Association and Organic Farmers and Growers certification logos, as opposed to no logo or the (less well known) EU logo.

Organic certification system became important means to restore consumer confidence in China. The purpose of this paper is to focus on consumer trust in organic milk of different brands and its influencing factors.

The data were collected from 876 randomly selected consumers in Shandong Province, China. And an ordered logistic model was established to analyze influencing factors of consumer trust.

Chinese consumers generally lack trust in organic milk. Consumer trust for different brands of organic milk was different, and was not high in general. Various factors, namely, age, education years, food safety awareness, evaluation of government regulation policy, evaluation of organic milk price, and purchase convenience, have a significant impact on consumer trust. Factors, such as income, environmental protection consciousness, and risk consciousness, are not significant.

This research is of academic value and of value to policy makers and suppliers. Government should promote institutional arrangement and strengthening supervision in production, certification, and circulation of organic products. Organic suppliers should implement reliable marketing strategy, such as correct pricing, and build a more extensive and convenient distribution network.