Abstract
Although food retailers have embraced organic certified food products as a way to reduce their environmental loading, organic sales only make up a small proportion of total sales worldwide. Most consumers have positive attitudes towards organic food, but attitudes are not reflected in behaviour. This article addresses consumers’ attitude–behaviour gap regarding their purchase of organic food and reports on how visualization of personal shopping data may encourage them to buy more organic food. Through the design of the visualization tool, the EcoPanel, and through an empirical study of its use, we provide evidence on the potential of the tool to promote sustainable food shopping practices. Of 65 users that tested the EcoPanel for five months, in-depth interviews were made with nine of these. The test users increased their purchase of organic food by 23%. The informants used the EcoPanel to reflect on their shopping behaviour and to increase their organic shopping. We conclude that the visualization of food purchases stimulates critical reflection and the formation of new food shopping practices. This implies that food retailers may increase sales of organic food through using a visualization tool available for their customers. In this way, these retailers may decrease their environmental impact.
Highlights
The global food system is in dear need of a transition to sustainable production and consumption practices
While critics question that organic agriculture is always more sustainable than conventional farming, e.g., [4], and while other scholars argue that organic agriculture is developing into being only a slightly modified version of conventional farming [5], there is ample evidence that organic agriculture delivers in terms of, e.g., increased on-farm biodiversity [6], mitigation of and adaption to climate change [7], improved soil fertility [8], and reduced exposure to pesticides [9]
Our study explores the role of feedback in the form of visualization of personal shopping data for overcoming the gap
Summary
The global food system is in dear need of a transition to sustainable production and consumption practices. Organic agriculture emerged as a grassroots movement during the last century as a reaction to environmentally degrading and socially unjust food systems [2]. Since it has developed into production and processing practices based on standards and certification, embraced by policy-makers as one way to introduce environmentally benign production methods [3]. The number of organic products sold is increasing, organic sales only make up 9.6% of total sales in Sweden [12]. This is high compared to most other countries. The grocery chain analyzed in this paper pioneered organic sales in supermarkets in Sweden and has the highest percentage of organic sales (10%), and holds 18% of the retail market value [12]
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