Hungry for Answers: Misperceptions Arising from Sustainability Labeling (An Abstract)

Abstract

While consumers are increasingly searching for ways to make more environmentally friendly food decisions, prior research suggests that the variety and complexity of existing sustainability communications on packaged foods pose as one of the greatest challenges for consumers. Moreover, the variety of food categories carrying sustainability labeling may cause further obfuscation to the messages consumers perceive. For instance, prior expectations of healthy and unhealthy foods may cause for different reactions when packaged with a sustainability label. Skepticism of “green” communications may also influence how consumers respond to sustainability labels. Here, the effects of how sustainability level and perceived healthfulness influence consumers differently across sustainability skepticism levels are investigated as well as the underlying mechanism. Our studies seek to enhance effective communication of sustainability information on packaged food products while offering insight on how sustainability labeling can influence consumer decisions. Findings suggest that alleviating consumers’ confusion in understanding food labels can become challenging given the matchup effect between healthfulness of foods and sustainability levels. When choosing food, the environmental impact of consumers’ purchases is unlikely to be a top concern. By capitalizing on the healthfulness of foods with appropriate sustainability levels, consumers will be more likely to attend to the sustainability labels. Generally, the findings suggest that healthy (vs. unhealthy) food products are evaluated more favorably when paired with a high (vs. low) sustainability level. In addition, this pattern of results was consistent for consumers with low levels of skepticism. In contrast, consumers with high levels of skepticism were not influenced by sustainability information. These consumers may base their product evaluations on other criteria, such as prior knowledge and experiences acquired over the years. While consumers are acquainted with and generally trust information in nutrition labels on packaged food, no such credible uniform method of communicating sustainability information yet exists. Results show a variety of factors interact with consumers’ perceptions, including perceived healthfulness, sustainability skepticism level, and perceived label fit, causing differing levels of willingness to pay or perceived taste. Marketers should be aware of expected ranges of values and sustainability skepticism when communicating sustainability information on packaged food. References Available Upon Request