Effect of Environmental and Altruistic Attitudes on Willingness-to-Pay for Organic and Fair Trade Coffee in Flanders

Leonard Maaya, Michel Meulders, Nick Surmont and Martina Vandebroek
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Leonard Maaya: Faculty of Economics and Business, KU Leuven, Naamsestraat 69, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
Michel Meulders: Faculty of Economics and Business, KU Leuven, Naamsestraat 69, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
Nick Surmont: Faculty of Economics and Business, KU Leuven, Naamsestraat 69, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
Martina Vandebroek: Faculty of Economics and Business, KU Leuven, Naamsestraat 69, 3000 Leuven, Belgium

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 12, 1-21

Abstract: Sustainability labels, on food products, provide information to consumers that the product has been produced in an ethical and environmentally friendly way. We explore the knowledge and purchasing behaviour of the organic label and fair trade label. Secondly, we investigate the willingness-to-pay (WTP) for food products bearing organic and fair trade labels. Thirdly, we examine the effects of demographic characteristics and environmental and altruistic attitudes on WTP for both organic and fair trade labels. Lastly, we evaluate the correlation in WTP for organic and fair trade labels. We draw our conclusions by analyzing a stated choice experiment on consumers’ coffee buying behaviour in Flanders, Belgium. Our results suggest that knowledge of the fair trade label is higher than that of the organic label. The importance of the organic and fair trade labels on coffee purchase decisions, as well as their WTP estimates, were similar. We found a high correlation in WTP for both labels. Our results indicate significant effects of environmental and altruistic attitudes on WTP for both organic and fair trade labels as they apply to coffee.

Keywords: coffee; organic; fair trade; willingness-to-pay; attitudes; discrete choice experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:12:p:4496-:d:186412

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