LCA Food 2012 in Saint Malo, France! - Manifestations et colloques ...

PARALLEL SESSION 7A: CONSUMERS 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
576
Food labelling from a consumers’ perspective
Ulrike Eberle
Ulrike Eberle, corsus – corporate sustainability, Nernstweg 32-34, D-22765 Hamburg, E-mail: u.eberle@corsus.de
ABSTRACT
In particular in the food sector the variety of products is enormous. Appropriate labels on food attributes that consumers have to trust
in could play a key role in supporting more sustainable and environmental friendly purchasing decisions. Various studies with a focus
on the German market and on environmental impacts have been analysed and brought together. The results show that LCA could be
the method of choice, but research on some environmental impact categories and how to include them best in LCA is still necessary.
However, most important from a consumers perspective is that the information in the label is presented in a way that it is reliable and
that it really supports sustainable purchasing decisions. Thus, research has to be carried out how to ‘translate’ LCA results appropriately
and how labels are used by consumers.
Keywords: food labelling, consumers’ perspective, environmental impacts, useability
1. Introduction
In particular in the food sector the variety of products is enormous. Large stores in Germany sell more
than 30,000 different articles, the market as a whole offers more than 100,000 articles. Thus, consumers have
to choose between huge varieties of products, some of them quite similar. For decision making they can use
the information given on the product. Some of these declarations are obligatory, like the list of ingredients,
best-before-date, or nutritional information; some are voluntary, like carbon labels or animal welfare labels
and mark food attributes consumers have to trust in. Because of the amount of different declarations it is in
most cases really difficult for consumers to handle all these detailed information (Eberle et al., 2011). Since
the 1950s it is known very well that most people are only able to take seven (plus or minus two) different
information into account for their purchasing decision - the so called ‘magical number seven’ (Miller 1956).
On the other side, information overload can lead to excessive demands and a refusal to even study the offered
choice (Walsh 2002).
In consumer research the role and success factors of signals like labels as effective information instruments
have been under investigation for a long time. Hence, it is known that consumers simplify decisions
via selective perception of information (e.g. Peter et al., 1999). In this kind of consumer research labels are
understood as ‘information chunks’, which are particularly important for comparing products and which
substitute and bundle other information (Kröber-Riel & Weinberg 2003, p. 284). Consumers expect essential
or even sufficient information about the product or process quality from labels. But one has to keep in mind
that information has to be as simple as possible and at the same time as exact as possible. Thus, labels “can
play a key role when it comes to trust-related properties of products or services, as consumers do not have a
reliable alternative source of this information” (Eberle et al., 2011, p. II).
Against this background the recent practice regarding labelling of food attributes that consumers have to
trust in like environmental impacts or social issues is analysed with a focus on Germany. The analysis focusses
mainly on environmental issues and identifies problems in recent practice.
2. Methods
For this purpose the findings from different studies and strategy papers of commissions and Advisory
boards on food labelling have been analysed and brought together. The analysis has been carried out from a
‘consumers’ perspective’ – a research methodology developed in the German research project
‘Ernährungswende’ (www.ernaehrungswende.de) funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research
(Hayn et al., 2005).
3. Results
In general, a “label means any tag, brand, mark, pictorial or other descriptive matter, written, printed,
stencilled, marked, embossed or impressed on, or attached to, a container of food” (WHO/FAO 2007, p. 2).
Furthermore, consumers also understand results of product tests as labels, i.e. the test results of the German
‘Stiftung Warentest’ which gives the opportunity to print the results on the product. Also brands can be seen
as labels from a consumers’ perspective in particular if concrete product qualities are promised with the
brands name or logo (Eberle et al., 2011).
In the past years more and more attributes of confidence, such as environmental or social issues, are labelled
in food products, some claim for less environmental impacts or better environmental performance,