Consumers’ Perception and Willingness to Pay for Eco-Labeled Seafood in Italian Hypermarkets

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discuss eco-labels for fish products, which are a useful tool to improve both seafood markets and strategies for sustainability management. In this study, 560 consumer-surveys were conducted in selected towns in northern and southern Italy. Both probit and linear regression modeling were used to measure consumers’ perception and willingness to pay for anchovy eco-labels. Italian hypermarket consumers demonstrated attention to environmental features as well as to eco-products, at times, independent of income. The results of this study show that willingness to pay relates to gender, family situation, mass communication, environmental features, angler community, and store, along with information from eco-labels. Specifically, females appeared highly responsive to seafood eco-labels, and their preferences were informed by environmental aspects along with a strong intrinsic motivation to protect marine habitats. According to our analysis, seafood eco-labels could increase the consumers’ willingness to pay between 16%–24% more for the product. Given that consumers’ willingness to pay can reveal a new form of an “ecosystem approach to fishery management”, there is a high chance that premium prices could become a tool for sustainable resource management.

The Willingness to Pay in the Food Sector. Testing the Hypothesis of Consumer Preferences for Some Made in Italy Products

“…As the extensive literature review has shown, all the studied groups of products have different quantitative value of the willingness to pay. Previous research has shown that the consumers are willing to pay a premium price of around 50% for Italian olive oil [7], the premium price for Made in Italy meat ranges from 10% to 20% [24,25] and for fish from 10-20% [50] to 24% [40]. In this regard, a 10% markup is the lowest premium price value for all the groups of products.…”

“…However, the willingness to pay a premium price for Made in Italy products by Italian consumers is also influenced by environmental sustainability factors. The eco-labels of seafood could increase the willingness to pay of Italian consumers by between 16% and 24%, highlighting how premium prices can become an effective tool for sustainable resource management [40]. However, an inverse trend also exists: although Italians consider environmental protection and the conservation of marine habitats an important issue, they are not willing to pay a higher price to support sustainable and selective fishing [41].…”

Consumers’ Preferences and Willingness to Pay for Fish Products with Health and Environmental Labels: Evidence from Five European Countries

“…Sustainability labelling is a market-based instrument promoting sustainable fisheries [ 24 , 25 ], considered an incentive for a responsible management of fisheries [ 26 , 27 ] as it decreases the information gap between producers and consumers [ 28 ]. Specifically, eco-labels are becoming an important attribute of fish choice, and preferences over eco-labelled seafood products have been studied for wild [ 20 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 ] and farmed species [ 20 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 ]. Other authors showed that most consumers associate sustainability labels on food products with aspects of environmental protection rather than ethical issues [ 4 ]; this also translates to a lower willingness to pay (WTP) for social benefits of sustainability rather than for ecological benefits [ 45 ].…”

Estimating the Willingness to Pay for Eco-Labeled Products of Formosan Pangolin (Manis pentadactyla pentadactyla) Conservation

“…Restrictions imposed for conservation may affect farming practices. However, with the provision of production and marketing history and the introduction of green labeling, ecological labeling, conservation labeling, friendly labeling, and organic labeling, consumers' WTP can usually be increased, and product awareness could also be raised [17,33,34]. A study on French consumers' WTP for apples with different labels showed that labeled apples increased different consumer groups' WTP [15].…”