Cargando…

Consumer Misuse of Country-of-Origin Label: Insights from the Italian Extra-Virgin Olive Oil Market

Providing information to consumers through the label is a means for food companies to inform consumers about product’s attributes, including the country of origin (COO). In the EU, COO labeling has been made mandatory for several categories of food products, to enable consumers to make informed choi...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Bimbo, Francesco, Roselli, Luigi, Carlucci, Domenico, de Gennaro, Bernardo Corrado
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7400813/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32707700
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu12072150
_version_ 1783566443919441920
author Bimbo, Francesco
Roselli, Luigi
Carlucci, Domenico
de Gennaro, Bernardo Corrado
author_facet Bimbo, Francesco
Roselli, Luigi
Carlucci, Domenico
de Gennaro, Bernardo Corrado
author_sort Bimbo, Francesco
collection PubMed
description Providing information to consumers through the label is a means for food companies to inform consumers about product’s attributes, including the country of origin (COO). In the EU, COO labeling has been made mandatory for several categories of food products, to enable consumers to make informed choices at the point of sale. In particular, Regulation (EU) No 29/2012 has introduced a mandatory country-of-origin labeling system for extra virgin olive oil (EVOO). In the present study, conducted in Italy, we test whether there is a price differential associated with the COO information for EVOO. To this end, we employ a hedonic price model and data about the purchase of EVOO products collected from 982 consumers at the supermarket checkout. Having interviewed these consumers, we also assess the share of EVOO consumers that correctly identify the country of origin of the product purchased. Our findings point out that, in Italy, the EVOO with domestic origin, indicated on the label, benefits of a premium price equal to +35% compared to the product labeled as blend of European EVOOs, while a discount of −10.8% is attached to EVOOs from a non-European origin. A significant share of consumers in our sample (19.04%) is, however, unable to correctly identify the origin of the EVOO purchased. This label misuse mostly occurs among consumers who report that they had purchased Italian EVOO, while they had actually purchased a blend of European EVOOs. Female and more highly educated consumers are less likely to misuse label information about the product’s origins.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7400813
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2020
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-74008132020-08-07 Consumer Misuse of Country-of-Origin Label: Insights from the Italian Extra-Virgin Olive Oil Market Bimbo, Francesco Roselli, Luigi Carlucci, Domenico de Gennaro, Bernardo Corrado Nutrients Article Providing information to consumers through the label is a means for food companies to inform consumers about product’s attributes, including the country of origin (COO). In the EU, COO labeling has been made mandatory for several categories of food products, to enable consumers to make informed choices at the point of sale. In particular, Regulation (EU) No 29/2012 has introduced a mandatory country-of-origin labeling system for extra virgin olive oil (EVOO). In the present study, conducted in Italy, we test whether there is a price differential associated with the COO information for EVOO. To this end, we employ a hedonic price model and data about the purchase of EVOO products collected from 982 consumers at the supermarket checkout. Having interviewed these consumers, we also assess the share of EVOO consumers that correctly identify the country of origin of the product purchased. Our findings point out that, in Italy, the EVOO with domestic origin, indicated on the label, benefits of a premium price equal to +35% compared to the product labeled as blend of European EVOOs, while a discount of −10.8% is attached to EVOOs from a non-European origin. A significant share of consumers in our sample (19.04%) is, however, unable to correctly identify the origin of the EVOO purchased. This label misuse mostly occurs among consumers who report that they had purchased Italian EVOO, while they had actually purchased a blend of European EVOOs. Female and more highly educated consumers are less likely to misuse label information about the product’s origins. MDPI 2020-07-19 /pmc/articles/PMC7400813/ /pubmed/32707700 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu12072150 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Bimbo, Francesco
Roselli, Luigi
Carlucci, Domenico
de Gennaro, Bernardo Corrado
Consumer Misuse of Country-of-Origin Label: Insights from the Italian Extra-Virgin Olive Oil Market
title Consumer Misuse of Country-of-Origin Label: Insights from the Italian Extra-Virgin Olive Oil Market
title_full Consumer Misuse of Country-of-Origin Label: Insights from the Italian Extra-Virgin Olive Oil Market
title_fullStr Consumer Misuse of Country-of-Origin Label: Insights from the Italian Extra-Virgin Olive Oil Market
title_full_unstemmed Consumer Misuse of Country-of-Origin Label: Insights from the Italian Extra-Virgin Olive Oil Market
title_short Consumer Misuse of Country-of-Origin Label: Insights from the Italian Extra-Virgin Olive Oil Market
title_sort consumer misuse of country-of-origin label: insights from the italian extra-virgin olive oil market
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7400813/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32707700
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu12072150
work_keys_str_mv AT bimbofrancesco consumermisuseofcountryoforiginlabelinsightsfromtheitalianextravirginoliveoilmarket
AT roselliluigi consumermisuseofcountryoforiginlabelinsightsfromtheitalianextravirginoliveoilmarket
AT carluccidomenico consumermisuseofcountryoforiginlabelinsightsfromtheitalianextravirginoliveoilmarket
AT degennarobernardocorrado consumermisuseofcountryoforiginlabelinsightsfromtheitalianextravirginoliveoilmarket