Cross-Cultural Comparison of Sustainable Agro-Food Consumption from Consumers’ Perspectives: Cases from Taiwan and France

Abstract

Sustainable agro-food consumption is a model intended to conserve the resources of today for future need. Consumers play a crucial role in transitioning towards sustainable food consumption, as they judge the attributes of products on the market and are the final decision-makers when it comes to changing consumption habits. Consequently, investigations on agro-food consumption from consumers’ perspectives are of great value. Therefore, we first referred to 60 articles to summarize 11 important factors of sustainable food consumption and identified three possible policy measures from the perspectives of consumers and cultural conditions, evaluating them using cases from both France and Taiwan. In addition, this study showed the dissimilarities between eco-consumption preferences for the two case areas, also evaluating consumers’ expectations on future policy alternatives through the application of the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and a survey. Moreover, demographic comparisons have been undertaken to support, explain, and re-examine the results. The results show that the key factors for sustainable food consumption are product accessibility, tradition, and regional factors. Policy measures focus on product certification and information. Due to different perceptions regarding product differentiation, people in Taiwan pay less attention to sustainable food prices. In France, obvious age-differentiated preferences as regards the promotion of policies were revealed: young people preferred certification, whilst elderly people preferred the provision of information.