Consumer's attitudes, vertical differentiation, and labelling regulation in the food industry new GM-products vs. traditional regional products.

Abstract

Consumer's attitudes, vertical differentiation, and labelling regulation in the food industry new GM-products vs. traditional regional products (di Adele Coppola, Maria Teresa Gorgitano, Valeria Sodano, Fabio Verneau) - ABSTRACT: The paper discusses results of a simulated marked research evaluating consumer’s preferences toward GM and NGM food products in the South of Italy. Three experimental scenarios with different hypotheses of price ratio and product attributes of GM and NGM products were run. Consumers’ choices were related to information and risk attitude. We find that consumers tend to prefer NGM products to GM products, without any statistical relationship with their information level and risk attitude. When the NGM product is compared with an enhanced GM product, most consumers still prefer NGM product. GM product consumption does rather depend on consumers’ risk perception. The results demonstrate that there is room in the market for vertical differentiation policies based on the wholesomeness of traditional production methods.