Interactions between Country-of-Origin, Brands and Food-Safety-Certificates in the Promotion of Beef in Germany – What is the Right Labelling Strategy? – A Consumer Preference Analysis on the Basis of a Conditional Logit Model –

This paper focuses on the deeper analysis of the interaction between Country-of-Origin, QUALITY & SAFETY labels, retailer brands and individual specific data with the target of identifying the best labelling strategies for the GERMAN BEEF market. For this purpose Discrete-Choice-method was applied. The empirical findings have interesting implications with respect to information economics in general, and the signalling effects of GIs, brands and QUALITY & SAFETY -labels in particular. Economic theory suggests that certificates reduce information asymmetries as far as consumers attribute product quality to producers' participation in quality assurance schemes. However, CO-labelled products may already be associated with a superior quality, rendering additional certification less effective. The results show a tendency in that direction. Mostly negative or no interaction effects for the analysed QUALITY & SAFETY-Country-of-Origin combinations were found. Nevertheless, there is the possibility that control labels can support the sales of certain origin as shown for the combination of BAVARIAN BEEF and CONTROLLED QUALITY-BAVARIA.