How Product Type and Organic Label Structure Combine to Influence Consumers’ Evaluations of Organic Foods

Abstract

This research finds that how a firm conveys a food’s organic nature through an organic label impacts consumers’ evaluation of that food. Consistent with previous research, adding organic labels to foods is detrimental to evaluations of vice (but not virtue) foods, but simple changes to the structure of the organic label attenuate the negative effect of such labels on evaluations of vice foods. Specifically, whereas product-level organic labels (e.g., “organic burrito”) result in lower evaluations of vice foods, ingredient-level organic labels (e.g., “burrito with all organic ingredients”) do not. No effect of organic label structure is found for virtue foods. The authors draw on theories of feature-based categorical typicality and fluency to suggest one psychological process by which organic label structure can impact consumers’ evaluations of vice foods.