Are Fair Trade, Carbon Footprint and Organic Attributes competing? Some Evidences from Scotland, Netherland and France

Abstract

A choice experiment was conducted in Scotland, the Netherlands and France to assess consumers’ preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for ethical attributes (i.e. fairtrade, organic, lower carbon footprint) of bananas and to find out whether this ethical food attributes are competing in real markets. The results showed that in the three countries consumers are willing to pay a price premium for the three ethical food attributes. The results showed that in the current market situation these ethical foods are not generally competing against each other. Nonetheless, they are likely to become competing for consumer’s money at least when: (1) the price of organic foods is decreased significantly, (2) the price for fairtrade food products is set higher than consumers’ WTP, and (3) bananas labelled has having lower carbon footprint are made available in retail stores and sold at a price lower than consumers’ WTP.