GMO labelling was made mandatory in response to pressure from consumers to have the freedom of choice. The more consumers choose to exercise this freedom to reject GMOs, the more producers will have an incentive to offer products that don’t need to have GMO labels. This task is finding out how many consumers intend to exercise their freedom to reject GM products, and how much they are willing to spend to do so.
Information on consumer attitudes towards GMOs in foods is collected by conducting interviews. Interview forms are sent by mail to 1,000 households in the UK, Germany, Spain, Poland, and Denmark. The questionnaire asks consumers to how willing they would be to purchase non-GM products at a range of premiums.
By finding out how much consumers are willing to pay extra for non-GM foods, researchers are able to estimate market demand curves. In association with the costs determined for the tests and documentation needed for traceability determined in other projects, this project estimates ultimate market sizes for GM and non-GM food products.
The main results of the survey can be summarized as follows. Freshness and flavour can be considered as the most important element for food purchasing. However, in GB, Poland and Spain price is also considered. There is a general negative attitude towards GM food in all countries. University scientists and consumer groups are the more trusted sources of information, and Denmark and Germany responders feel themselves more informed that the rest. Regarding to organic food, only German and Danish consumers do spend on organic food. Moreover there is an agreement among countries regarding positive attitudes towards organic food. The study also revealed that GM technology is not considered by respondents as very risky compared with pesticides, artificial hormones or irradiation. Finally, respondents in all study countries prefer conventional food over GM food. However, Spanish respondents made a slight exception since they were prepared to pay a premium for GM food with health benefits. Moreover, all study country respondents except Polish ones, assigned a higher utility for organic food in relation to conventional counterpart.
More information:
Consumers’ attitudes to the EU traceability and labelling regulation
Public Deliverables of the Co-Extra project
| NAME / ORGANISATION | CONTACT INFORMATION |
| Anders Larsen and Morten Gylling The Danish Research Institute of Food Economics (FOI), Danmark |
Email: info@coextra.eu |
| Jose Chema Gil Centro de Investigacion en Economia Y Desarrollo Agroalimentarios(CREDA), Spain | |
| Bruce Traill The University of Reading, United Kingdom | |
| Matthias Stolze Forschungsinstitut fuer Biologischen Landbau (FiBL), Switzerland | |
| Klaus Menrad University of Applied Sciences of Weihenstephan, Germany | |
| Sylwia Zakowska-Biemans Warsaw Agricultural University, Poland |