Sustainable foods are very popular, but if you want to buy environmentally or animal-friendly, it is not always easy. Packaging is teeming with organic, fair trade and animal welfare seals-and very few it is clear what is behind each individual. A new study now shows that even small changes in design can help to create orientation, to build trust and to make sustainable purchase decisions easier.
The labeling of sustainable foods-for example with organic, fair trade or animal welfare labels-is intended to provide consumers that products correspond to certain social and ecological standards. “However, many labels do not meet this purpose because they either do not attract attention, are not clear enough or even irritate,” emphasizes Monika Hartmann from the University of Bonn.
She mentions the EU’s organic seal as an example: the so-called “Green Leaf”. It was introduced in 2010 to create a European internal market for certified organic products. But although this seal is mandatory in contrast to national logos for organic products, according to a survey, just 56 percent of the EU population know the “Green Leaf”. And only 45 percent know what it stands for. But how could that change?
If the word “organic” were not
In order to find out how the label can become more understandable and trustworthy, Hartmann and her team carried out a large-scale survey in seven EU countries. They showed around 9,500 participants either the original EU logo-a stylized white sheet made of twelve stars on a green background-or a variant of it, in which the sheet was additionally provided with the lettering “Bio” or “Eco”-partly supplemented “EU certified”. The results were clear: the modified logos were perceived in all countries as a clear, more understandable, trustworthy and helpful. Only the addition “EU-certified” showed no further benefits. “Apparently the original logo lacks the clear signal that it is an organic label,” says Hartmann.
This was particularly clear in a subsequent study in Germany with around 500 subjects with whom the team wanted to find out why the clearer design was better received. It showed: “Almost 90 percent classify this around ‘Bio’ or ‘Eco’ clearly supplemented organic products. The original EU logo, on the other hand, identify less than 70 percent correctly,” reports Hartmann. The clearer design subsequently reduced the uncertainty of the participants and created a higher trust in the correspondingly marked products.
Better designs needed
The researchers conclude that sustainability labels must be more understandable in order to offer consumers actual orientation when making a purchase decision. If this is not the case, even small, targeted modifications can do a lot. The results could now provide important impulses for the further development of existing seals-not only at EU level. As a result, good intentions could also be visible at first glance.
Source: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn; Specialist articles: Agribusiness, Doi: 10.1002/Agr.70013
