Insights into the organic labelling effect: the special case of wine
ISSN: 0007-070X
Article publication date: 21 December 2021
Issue publication date: 1 November 2022
Abstract
Purpose
While research shows that organic labels are perceived positively for most food products, the findings are more ambiguous for wine. This may be due to the complexity of the product. Accordingly, the labelling effect might be influenced by people's prior knowledge of wines and their attitudes towards organic wines and thus be more pronounced for certain consumer groups. Providing insights into those moderators could help to steer people towards sustainable wine consumption. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the effect of organic labelling on consumers' liking of, and their willingness to pay (WTP) for white wine, and the role of potential moderators.
Design/methodology/approach
A wine tasting experiment was conducted using a within-subjects design (n = 214). The mediating role of expected liking and the moderating roles of subjective knowledge and attitude towards organic wine were analysed using the MEMORE macro in SPSS.
Findings
The results do not confirm an overall positive halo effect of labelling on liking of organic wine. Nevertheless, a positive halo effect on actual liking was observed for those respondents who have a positive attitude towards organic wine. Furthermore, an overall positive effect of organic labelling on WTP was found. Mediation effects could not be confirmed.
Originality/value
This study used an experimental design that considers not only expected liking but also actual liking and WTP for organic wines. Using a moderation-mediation framework helps to better understand consumers' quality evaluation and WTP for organic wine. Finally, it could be shown that the organic halo is more complex for the product category of wine than others have previously stated.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all the people who assisted with the data collection and the three reviewers for insightful comments and suggestions that helped to improve the manuscript.
Citation
Macht, J., Klink-Lehmann, J., Piqueras-Fiszman, B. and Hartmann, M. (2022), "Insights into the organic labelling effect: the special case of wine", British Food Journal, Vol. 124 No. 11, pp. 3974-3992. https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-04-2021-0378
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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