Between farms and forks: Food industry perspectives on the future of EU food labelling

Christoph Schulze, Bettina Matzdorf, Jens Rommel, Mikolaj Czajkowski, Marina García-Llorente, Inés Gutiérrez-Briceño, Lina Larsson, Katarzyna Zagórska and Wojciech Zawadzki

Ecological Economics, 2024, vol. 217, issue C

Abstract: This study assesses how information about the provision of ecosystem services can contribute to an integrative food labelling framework within the European Unions' Farm to Fork Strategy. By applying Q-methodology with 43 food industry experts from four European member states – Germany, Poland, Spain, and Sweden –, we identify common viewpoints among food processors, retailers and labelling organisations. We find a consensus in support of introducing new food labels that would encourage farmers to deliver more ecosystem services, such as increased farm biodiversity. Applying factor analysis and using the qualitative information from the interviews, we derive three distinct prototypes of a future European food label: 1) a producer-driven ecosystem services label, 2) a consumer-oriented information label, and 3) a new EU sustainable food label. These label prototypes are partly country-specific and invoked by multiple stakeholder groups. We conclude that a future European Union food labelling framework must account for all three label prototypes. Policymakers are advised to embrace the diversity of viewpoints of food system actors, as they are the main drivers of the success and failure of labels.

Keywords: Ecosystem services; Farm to fork strategy; Food system common agricultural policy; Food labels; Q methodology; Value chain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q18 Q57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800923003294
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:217:y:2024:i:c:s0921800923003294

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.108066

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().