Certification Logos in the Market for Organic Food: What are Consumers Willing to Pay for Different Logos?

Organic food is often labelled with an organic certification logo to gain consumer trust in theproduct integrity. The number of different organic certification logos in the European marketraises the question whether consumers prefer specific logos over others. The aim of this paperis to analyse consumers’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) for different organic logos to giverecommendations for actors in the organic sector. Choice experiments and structuredinterviews were conducted with 2,441 consumers of organic food in six European countries.The data was analysed with random parameter logit models. We found great differencesbetween the tested logos regarding the price premium that consumers were willing to pay. Thehighest WTP was recorded for well-known logos that consumers perceived as credible withhigh production standards and a strict control system. It is thus recommended for suppliers oforganic food to label products with an organic logo preferred by consumers. Organisationsowning an organic logo should put effort into measures for increasing consumer awareness ofthe logo and forming consumer perceptions of the certification scheme behind it.