Research ArticleEthnocentrism Trust and the Willingness to Pay of ChineseConsumers for Organic Labels from Different Countriesand Certifiers
Shijiu Yin 1 Fei Han 1 Yiqin Wang1 Wuyang Hu2 and Shanshan Lv1
1School of Economics Qufu Normal University Rizhao 276826 China2Department of Agricultural Environmental and Development Economics e Ohio State University ColumbusOH 43210 USA
Correspondence should be addressed to Shijiu Yin ysjtougao163com
Received 6 July 2018 Accepted 6 February 2019 Published 24 February 2019
Academic Editor Susana Fiszman
Copyright copy 2019 Shijiu Yin et al is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution Licensewhich permits unrestricted use distribution and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited
Although numerous studies have examined consumer preference for organic foods few have focused on consumer willingness topay (WTP) for organic labels from dissimilar countries or certiers We conducted a choice experiment to examine how Chineseconsumer ethnocentrism and trust on organic labels and certiers may aect theirWTP for organic labels from dierent countriesas well as for dierent certiers Chinese consumers did not show a high level of ethnocentrism and this may lead to in-consistencies in theirWTP for organic labels Signicantly consumer preferences for certiers did not change remarkably with theincrease in consumer ethnocentrism Chinese consumers generally preferred organic labels from developed countries (or US-invested organic certiers) With increases in the trust in labels consumerWTP for each type of organic label increased in generalbut the dierence betweenWTPs for organic labels from dierent countries decreased Similar results were observed in consumerWTP for certiers Determining distinct preferences for organic labels from various sources and countries can be a valuablereference for manufacturers or international certication service providers to choose target markets and for governments toestablish their certication systems
1 Introduction
Food safety concerns are a global issue especially in de-veloping countries Due to profound economic reforms andchanges throughout the country food risks and food safetyincidents have become particularly prevalent in China [1]From an economic point of view market failure led byinformation asymmetry is an important cause of food safetyproblems [2] Authoritative third-party certiers can gaingreater consumer trust than producers [3] and organiccertication by third-parties has become an important toolfor mitigating food quality information asymmetry [4]Organic food labeling is therefore a common method formanufacturers to demonstrate food quality to consumersand is an important policy in government food safetymanagement [5]
Since the late twentieth century China has developeddiversied organic certication policies in which domesticand foreign organic labeling play joint lead roles (Accordingto the Certication and Accreditation Administration of thePRC there were 83 organic food certiers in Mainland Chinain 2016 Several dierent organic labeling schemes developedby China or the US and European countries coexist in theChinese market with 13000 valid certicates having beenissued such as the China organic certication EU organiccertication and Japan Agricultural Standard (JAS) certi-cation Organic food sales have reached over 81 billion USdollars China has become an important component of theemerging global organic food market (CNCA news httpfoodcncacncncaspncpsyindexshtml accessed January15 2015)) Organic food sold in Mainland China can bebranded with organic labels from China or countries such as
HindawiJournal of Food QualityVolume 2019 Article ID 8173808 13 pageshttpsdoiorg10115520198173808
the US Japan and Argentina In addition these organic labelscan be issued by different certifiers eg the ChinaOrganic FoodCertification Center under the Chinese Ministry of Agricultureor the foreign-funded CERES (Shanghai) Certification Co LtdHowever the relatively immature Chinese organic food marketcontinues to experience problems such as deficiency of su-pervision unclear certificate issuers lack of manufacturer self-discipline and unfair competition [6] Constant food safetyscares such as fake organic food (for instance in 2013 themediareported that the China KweichowMoutai Co was suspected ofusing fake organic raw ingredients in the production of organicmaotai a well known high-profile liquor brand causingwidespread concern) have led to market chaos in the Chineseorganic food industry resulting in consumer distrust of organicfood labeled by domestic certifiers [7] Organic labels as well asorganic certifiers fromother countries have gained popularity inChina Currently there are 83 certifiers in China andmore than20 of them are foreign-funded Most of these certifiers can issueseveral labels from different countries However there has beenfew research on consumer preference for labels from diversecountries or certifiers is triggers several questions First doChinese consumers prefer organic labels fromcertain countriesSecond do these preferences interact with certifiers issuing thelabels or are they affected by consumer ethnocentrismird ifconsumers have more trust in organic labels from certaincountries or certifiers how does their trust affects consumerwillingness to pay (WTP) ese questions are the primaryfocus points of this paper
In this study we focused on organic tomatoes China isboth a major vegetable producing and consuming countrywith vegetable production of 7600548 million tons in 2014and household per capita purchase of fresh vegetables of1123 kg in 2012 [8] Tomatoes are one of the most commonlyproduced and consumed vegetables in China (Technicallytomatoes are a type of fruit (berry) but following the con-ventions of the Chinese grocery listings they are referred to asa type of vegetable in this study) In 2012 Chinese tomatoproduction was 50million tons accounting for approximately309 of world tomato production [9] In addition tomatoproducers in China are generally small-sized with dispersedproduction and without any major brand names ese traitshave reduced the influence of unnecessary brand affiliation onconsumer choice in our study
2 Literature Review
Being organic is a credence attribute which is difficult toassess at the time of purchase and even after consumptionAn organic certification label is an important basis forconsumers to identify organic food [10] Many reviews havedealt with the topic of consumer preference for organic food[11 12] Previous studies have examined consumerWTP fororganic food(s) (such as apples) or compared consumerWTP for organic food with other food attributes such aslocal production or animal welfare labels Gil et al foundthat consumer WTP for organic food ranged between11133 and 12529 [13] Tranter et al revealed thatconsumers were prepared to pay a premium for conversion-grade produce of around half the premium for organic
produce with vegetables attracting a higher premium thanmeat [14] Soler et al investigated Spanish consumer WTPfor organic food and showed that 70 of respondentsexpressed a willingness to pay a premium for organic oliveoil [13] Rousseau and Vranken found that Flemish con-sumers were willing to pay a premium for organic labeledapples [15] Napolitano and Braghieri investigated the WTPof Italian consumers for conventional and organic beef andfound there was a significant relationship between personalpreference and WTP for organic food [16] Hempel andHamm combined a consumer survey with an in-store choiceexperiment to study consumer preferences for organic andlocal foods and determined that organic-minded consumers(ie those who regarded organic food production as im-portant) had stronger preferences for organic and localproducts [17] Olesen et al used a choice experiment to findthat Norwegian consumers preferred organic and animalwelfare-labeled salmon to otherwise identical salmon fromconventional farms [18]
To the best of our knowledge however few studies havecompared consumer WTP for different organic labelsJanssen and Hamm investigated different organic certifi-cation labels in six European countries and found thatconsumer WTP for different labels varied greatly [5] VanLoo et al analyzed chicken breast that carried a United StatesDepartment of Agriculture (USDA) organic label or ageneral organic certification label with consumer WTP forthe former found to be much higher [19] Wu et al assessedconsumer WTP for organic labels from the EU US andChina and found that Chinese consumers show a higherWTP for EU than for Chinese organic labels [7] Built uponthese studies we further assess the effect of different organiccertifiers while considering the impact of consumer trust andethnocentrism
e ability of organic labels to provide food qualityassurance to consumers and thus reducing informationasymmetry between suppliers and buyers depends onconsumer trust in organic labels [7 12] Roitner-Schobesberger et al conducted a sample survey in ai-land and found consumer WTP was affected by trust [20]Vittersoslash and Tangeland discussed challenges towards thepurchase of organic food among Norwegian consumers anddemonstrated that trust in the labeling system was signifi-cant [21] Yin et al focused on consumer trust in Chineseorganically labeled milk and found that consumers generallydid not trust this product [22] As organic labels are issuedby specific organic certifiers consumer trust in organiclabels is inevitably related to their trust in the label issuersHowever consumer trust in different organic certifiers andits impact on WTP have not yet been studied
Similar to that in many other countries organic foodlabels on the Chinese market can come from differentcountries or from certifiers from different countries usconsumer WTP for these organic labels might be affected byconsumer ethnocentrism Empirical studies have indicatedthat consumers with high ethnocentrism tend to prefer tobuy domestic products and have a prejudice against foreignproducts [23ndash26] e purchase of foreign products isthought to threaten national enterprises and in some cases
2 Journal of Food Quality
is considered immoral with resulting ethical conflicts[25 27 28] Historically Chinese consumer ethnocentrismhas resulted from the strong impact of foreign capital onnational capital Since the 1980s with increasing integrationof China to the world economy Chinese attitudes towardsproducts from overseas have become increasingly complexDue to numerous interacting factors there are varyingdegrees of heterogeneity in consumer ethnocentrism amongdifferent products and consumer groups NeverthelessChinese consumers generally do not show high ethnocen-trism [29 30] Some studies have examined the impact ofethnocentrism on Chinese consumer preferences forproducts or brands from different countries [23 29] He andWang reported that Chinese consumer ethnocentrism has anegative impact on relative preference for import brands butnot on actual buying of domestic or import brands [31] Liuet al found that country of origin could moderate the impactof consumer ethnocentrism on foreign brand evaluationssignificantly so for a US brand but insignificant when thecountry of origin was Australia [29] However such studieshave primarily focused on physical products such as au-tomobiles and bottled water [23 31] rather than productattributes such as certification
In the present study we investigate consumer trust inorganic labels from different countries and different types oforganic certifiers Consumer WTP for organic labels fromdifferent countries and different types of organic certifiers aswell as the interactions between them were evaluated andcompared e possible impacts of consumer trust andethnocentrism on consumer preferences were also analyzed
3 Methodology
31 Choice Experiment We examined consumer WTP fororganic labels from different countries and certifiers througha consumer survey featuring a choice experiment Fivedifferent labels were considered US organic label (USORG)Japanese organic label (JPORG) Argentine organic label(ARORG) Chinese organic label (CNORG) and no organiclabel (NOORG) e reasons for setting such attribute levelsare as follows (1) A previous empirical study and focusgroup interview showed that Chinese consumers are rela-tively familiar with USORG JPORG ARORG andCNORG6 (In the focus group interview organic labels from15 different countriesregions were presented e partici-pants were then asked to mark the labels they knew Organiclabels known by more than 30 of participants includedChinese organic labels (76) US organic labels (47) EUorganic labels (46) Japanese organic labels (42) NewZealand organic labels (41) Australian organic labels(37) Argentine organic labels (18) and Brazilian organiclabels (17) e statistical results from the formal surveywere substantially similar to the above results) (2) Both theUS and Japan are important trading partners with ChinaJapan is geographically close to China and is the only Asiancountry in the Group of Seven (G7) Although China andJapan have a long history of exchange Chinese consumershave boycotted Japanese goods due to historical and terri-torial issues28 erefore USORG and JPORG were selected
as representatives of certification services from developedcountriesregions with different types of association withChina (3) Although ARORG is not as well-known toChinese consumers it is still one of the most well-knownorganic labels from developing countriesregions MoreoverArgentina is second only to the US in land devoted to or-ganic agricultural production [32] and is a leader amongdeveloping countries ARORG was thus chosen as a rep-resentative of the developing world
Because organic labels must be approved and issued byspecific organic certifiers organic certifier was introduced asan attribute in the choice experiment to examine organiclabel and certifier interaction e reason for examining thisinteraction is that according to Dawes and Corrigan 70ndash90 of consumer utility variance is explained by the maineffects of an attribute and as much as 5ndash15 by two-wayinteractions [33] erefore considering two-way in-teractions can not only provide insights into understandingthe interaction effects between the attributes but also helpreduce errors in estimating the main effect of an attribute[34] Similar to that of most countries there are many(approximately 20) organic certifiers in China which can bedivided into four types (1) certifiers established under therelevant government departments eg the China OrganicFood Certification Center under the Chinese Ministry ofAgriculture (2) certifiers established under academic re-search institutions eg Northwest AampF University Certifierunder the Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University(3) private certifiers eg Hangzhou Wantai CertificationLimited and (4) foreign-invested certifiers approved by theCertification and Accreditation Administration of the PRCFor instance the CERES (Shanghai) Certification Co Ltd isa joint venture established in China by the CERES Certi-fication of Environmental Standards GmbH Germany Allfour types of certifiers can provide organic certificationservices in China or other countries on a cooperative orcommission basis (According to the Regulations of thePeoplersquos Republic of China on Certification and Accredi-tation foreign certifiers are not allowed to provide organiccertification services in China without preapproval)erefore the certifier attribute was set at five levels Chinesegovernment-supported (GOVCERT) Chinese private(PRICERT) Chinese academic institution-supported(ACACERT) developed country-invested and developingcountry-invested certifiers To facilitate participant selectionUS-invested certifiers (USCERT) and Argentine-investedcertifiers (ARCERT) were used to represent developedand developing country-invested certifiers respectively
For the attribute price (PRICE) high (14 $kg) medium(11 $kg) and low (08 $kg) levels were set per the actualmarket price of tomatoes in supermarkets and organic foodstores (To facilitate understanding we converted theoriginal RMB yuan currency unit into US dollars in ac-cordance with the exchange rate on November 1 2015 (1 USdollar 63171 RMB))
e final attributes and their levels which are shown inTable 1 resulted in 5 times 5 times 3 75 virtual tomato productoptions Each choice task contained two virtual tomatoproduct options as well as an opt-out option If a full
Journal of Food Quality 3
factorial design was used the participants had to completeC275 2775 choice tasks which is unrealistic erefore a
fractional factorial design (FFD) was used and the first-orderinteraction effect was considered in order to reduce thenumber of tasks while ensuring efficiency Five versionswere generated using SAS software each with 15 tasks for adesign D-efficiency of 100 (see Figure 1 for an example of achoice task)
32 Consumer Ethnocentrism and Trust in Labels from Dif-ferent Countries Consumer ethnocentrism and consumertrust in different labels or different certifiers were alsocollected in the consumer survey
321 Consumer Ethnocentrism To quantify consumerethnocentrism survey participants indicated their agree-ment with six items in the questionnaire using a Likert scalefrom 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree) e items wereselected based on consumer ethnocentrism scales and sur-veys used by previous researchers [25 35] Only one factorwas extracted after applying factor analysis of the collectedanswers Following Zhuang et al and after removing oneitem with the lowest item-total correlation a five-itemconsumer ethnocentrism scale (α 0727) was obtained[25] Table 2 lists the items and their mean scores econsumer ethnocentrism propensity score (ETH) was cal-culated for each survey participant by adding the scores ofeach item and dividing by five
322 Consumer Trust in Different Labels and CertifiersConsumer trust in organic labels from each country wasmeasured using two seven-point Likert scale (α 0733)questions as per Delgado-Ballester and Munuera-Alemanwho allowed respondents to provide a self-judgment using aseven-point Likert scale (the agreedisagree anchor points)[36] (In our survey we did not want to impose a definitionof food quality upon respondents Rather it was treated as abroad concept that could encompass many componentsincluding food safety e two questions are as follows (a) Ithink that the tomato I buy with this label can be trusted forits high quality (b) I think that the tomato I buy with thislabel has reliable quality e mean scores of the two itemsare 4962 and 4938 respectively) e index of participantsrsquo
trust in organic labels (LTRUST) was calculated by averagingthe scores of the two items
Consumer trust in each organic certifier (CTRUST) wasmeasured using the similar two-item scale (α 0723) pre-viously to investigate respondentsrsquo trust in food suppliers[37] (e two questions are as follows (a) in general I canrely on organic certifiers to supervise organic suppliers toprovide high quality tomatoes (b) in general I think thatorganic certifiers can be trusted to ensure that tomatoes areof high quality e mean scores of the two items are 4786and 4934 respectively) Participants indicated theiragreement with seven items in the questionnaire using aLikert scale from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree) eindex of participantsrsquo trust in organic certifiers (CTRUST)was calculated by averaging the scores of these two items
GOVCERT USCERT
NoneOrganiclabel
Certificationbody
08US$kgPrice 14US$kg
Figure 1 Sample choice task
Table 2 Consumer ethnocentrism scale
Item description Mean scoresChinese people should give priority to domesticproducts in their purchasing decisions to protect thenational industry
3756
I am proud of the development of the Chinesenational enterprises 4364
I am worried about the threat of foreign products toChinarsquos related industries and markets 3757
I am uneasy about the expansion of foreign brandsor products in China 3752
Chinese people should use Chinese products asmuch as possible 4080
Acceptance of Chinese products by consumers isdirectly related to the sustainable development ofnational enterprises and the Chinese economya
3851
α value 0727Explanation power of the overall scale 4876ais item was not used in the calculation of the ethnocentrism propensityscore because of its low correlation coefficient with the overall scale
Table 1 Attributes and attribute levels used in the choice ex-periment design
Attribute LevelOrganiclabel
US organic label Japanese organic label Argentineorganic label Chinese organic label no label
Certifiers
Chinese government-supported certifiers Chineseprivate certifiers Chinese academic institution-supported certifiers US-invested certifiers
33 EconometricModelling e econometric analysis of thechoice data was based on random utility theory [38] As-suming individual consumers are rational they will choosethe product (ie tomato) option with the maximum utilityUtility Uni obtained by consumer n choosing tomato option i
can be defined as follows
Uni Vni + εni
Vni Xniβ(1)
where Vni and εni are the deterministic and stochastic termsof utility respectively indicating that the true consumerutility is unobservable from the perspective of researchers Ifconsumer n maximizes hisher utility by choosing tomatooption ia in choice set C the probability of consumer n
choosing tomato option i can be defined as follows
Pni Prob Uni gtUnj j 1 J jne i1113872 1113873
Pni Prob εni minus εnj gtUnj minusUni j 1 J jne i1113872 1113873
(2)
Assuming εni(i 1 J) follows an independent andidentically distributed type I maximum extreme-value dis-tribution the probability of consumer n choosing tomatooption i can be expressed as follows [39]
Pni eXiβ
1113936Jj1e
Xiβ i 1 J (3)
is is the conditional logit model (MNL) e MNLmodel assumes that consumer preferences are homoge-neous although this can be inconsistent with the actualsituation A more realistic assumption is that consumerpreferences are heterogeneous In other words βmay not befixed but stochastic and follows a certain distributionGiven this assumption the utility obtained by consumer i
choosing option m in situation t can be defined as follows[40]
Uimt βiprimeXimt + eimt (4)
where Ximt is the vector of observable variables associatedwith the option and decision maker βi is the coefficientvector of consumer i with respect to these variables and eimt
is a stochastic term is utility function can be furtherexpressed as follows
Uimt β +Ωprimeηi( 1113857primeXimt + eimt (5)
where β is the mean of vector βi Ωprimeηi represents tasteheterogeneity and Ω is the Cholesky matrix considering thecorrelation between the random coefficients βi An appro-priate distribution assumption can be made for randomdeviation ηi e unconditional probability is the integral ofthe logit probability over the density function of βi
Pimt 1113946eβprimeXimt
1113936jeβprimeXijt
⎛⎝ ⎞⎠f(β)dβ (6)
where f(β) is the multivariate probability density functionEquation (6) is a generalized form of the MNL model
known as the mixed logit (ML)model (or random parameterlogit model) Assuming that the consumer makes a choice atT different times and that the choice sequence isI i1 iT1113864 1113865 the probability for the consumer choosing thesequence is as follows
LiT(β) 1113945T
t1
eβiprimeXiitt
1113936Jj1e
βiprimeXijt
⎡⎢⎢⎢⎣ ⎤⎥⎥⎥⎦ (7)
e unconditional probability is the integral over β
PiT 1113946 LiT(β)f(β)dβ (8)
Due to the random parameter specification the MLmodel relaxes the restrictive assumption of independence ofirrelevant alternatives associated with the MNL model
4 Survey Design and Data
is study was conducted in Shandong Province a populousprovince located in the eastern coastal area of China egross value of agricultural production in Shandong was11942 million US dollars in 2014 including vegetableproduction of 4324 million US dollars making it the topagricultural province among the 31 provinces of MainlandChina8 e economic development within Shandong is notbalanced with remarkable differences between the easterncoastal and western inland areas is is a close reflection ofthe developmental differences between the eastern coastaland the central and western inland areas of China To thisregard Shandong is representative of China In this studythree representative cities were selected from each of theeastern (Qingdao Weihai and Rizhao) central (LaiwuZibo and Tairsquoan) and western regions (Liaocheng Dezhouand Heze) of Shandong respectively
e survey included two phases In the first phaseabout 10 participants were selected in each city using arandom sampling method to conduct focus group in-terviews e purpose was to obtain basic informationabout consumers and their knowledge of organic labels andprovide a basis for defining the attributes and their levelsFocus group discussions are a suitable way to gain un-derstanding of specific topics or product categories [41]From April to July 2015 a one-hour focus group discussionwas conducted in each of the nine cities respectively Eachdiscussion group included 8ndash10 participants (81 in total)Each participant was the family member who most fre-quently purchased food and was aged between 18 and 65Each interview consisted of two segmentse first segmentassesses participantsrsquo knowledge trust buying habitsbuying motives reasons for purchase and key attributeswith respect to organic food e second segment examinesconsumer ethnocentrism and attitudes such as attitudestowards products or brands from different sources Toimprove and finalize the survey questionnaire a pre-liminary pilot study was first carried out with 100 con-sumers selected from Rizhao Shandong province inOctober 2015 Only minor adjustments were made to thequestionnaire after the pilot testing
Journal of Food Quality 5
e second phase involves implementing the actualsurvey from October to December 2015 Participants wererecruited at random near supermarkets or shopping centersto take part in an in-person survey in each of the nine citiesAlthough supermarkets and farmersrsquo markets are the mainplaces for Chinese residents to buy vegetables organicvegetables are mainly sold in supermarkets and organic foodstores in business districts6 which was also verified by thefocus group interviews e survey was administered bytrained investigators to ensure consistency Every thirdindividual approaching our booth was intercepted as apossible respondent to ensure the randomness of the sampleA total of 907 consumers (around 100 in each city) par-ticipated in the survey with an estimated response rate of7436 among these a total of 853 respondents completedthe questionnaire e sample included 480 women(5628) which is consistent with the fact that mosthousehold food buyers in China are female [7] Surveysample demographics are shown in Table 3
5 Results
51 Chinese Consumer Ethnocentrism and Trust Scorese mean Chinese consumer ethnocentrism (ETH) scorewas 39417 with a standard deviation of 10341is result isconsistent with the conclusions of Raskovic et al and Liuet al who noted that Chinese consumers generally do notshow high ethnocentrism2930 It could be attributed to theincreasing integration of China in the world economy overthe last 30 years of reform
Based on consumer trust in the four organic labels asshown in Table 4 mean consumer trust was 475 with somedifferences found among labels Mean trust for the fourorganic labels was in descending order USORG (542)JPORG (534) ARORG (473) and CNORG (432) Furtheranalysis of mean consumer trust by dependent-sample t-testrevealed significant differences in mean consumer trustamong the four organic labels (all plt 001) Mean consumertrust in USORG and JPORG were similar and much higherthan that in ARORG and CNORG Consumers had moretrust in organic labels from developed countriesregionsis is consistent with previous research indicating thatproducts from developed countries are often more popularthan those from developing countries [42]
As seen in Table 4 differences in trust were also foundamong different certifiers Dependent-sample t-test showedsignificant differences in mean consumer trust (all plt 001)Consumers had the highest trust in USCERT followed byACACERT then ARCERT and GOVCERT and lastlyPRICERT Consumers showed lower trust in private thangovernment certification and lower trust in domestic thanforeign certifiers especially certifiers from developedcountries is coincides with the findings of Wu et al [7]
52 ML Model Estimates Effect coding was used in theanalysis Assumptions for the relevant parameter distribu-tions are as follows first the coefficients of the price (PRICE)and opt-out variables were fixed and secondly the attributelevels followed normal distribution [43] Table 5 shows theML model estimation results using NLOGIT 50 As seen inTable 5 the ML model estimates showed significantlypositive two-way interactions (and thus complementaryrelationships) between USCERT and USORG and betweenARCERTand ARORG Certification of USORG by USCERTand certification of ARORG by ARCERT both generatedpositive effects on the combined main effects of the twoattributes For foreign certifiers certification of organic la-bels from their respective countries improved Chineseconsumer preferences In addition ACACERT exhibitedsignificantly positive interactions with USORG JPORG andARORG us certification of USORG JPORG andARORG by academic institutions also generated positiveeffects on the combined main effects of the two attributesis might be because consumers assumed that the ability ofacademic institutions to provide certification services forforeign organic labels highlighted their professional com-petence thereby increasing consumer preference issupports earlier findings that showed complementary orsubstitutional relationships between different attributes offood [7 42]
53 Estimates of WTP Based on the estimates in Table 5 aswell as the characteristics of the ordinal utilities of the maineffects of an attribute WTP was calculated as follows
WTPk minus2 timesβk + βETHtimesak
times ETH + βLTRUSTtimesaktimes LTRUST + βCTRUSTtimesak
times CTRUST +1113936jβktimesj times aj
βprice1113888 1113889 (9)
where WTPk is the WTP for level k of the attribute of in-terest βk is the coefficient of the main effect of level k of thisattribute βETHtimesak
is the coefficient of the interaction betweenETH and level k of the attribute βLTRUSTtimesak
and βCTRUSTtimesak
are the coefficients of the interaction between LTRUST andCTRUST and level k of the attribute respectively βktimesj is thecoefficient of the interaction between level k of the attribute
and other attributes and βprice is the estimated price co-efficient Because effect coding was used in the analysis theWTP should be multiplied by 2 in the calculation [44] econfidence interval of WTP was estimated using the para-metric bootstrapping technique (PBT) [45] Table 6 presentsthe mean WTP estimates for different organic labels andcertifiers and the corresponding confidence intervals
6 Journal of Food Quality
Table 4 Participantsrsquo trust in different organic labels and certifiers
Label Mean Standard deviation Certifiers Mean Standard deviationUSORG 542 13547 GOVCERT 496 10357JPORG 534 11357 PRICERT 394 07586ARORG 473 09834 ACACERT 524 08674CNORG 432 07589 USCERT 568 12457mdash mdash mdash ARCERT 502 11567AVERAGEa 495 12498 AVERAGEa 486 10247aMean consumer trust in all organic labels or certifiers
Table 5 Mixed logit model result on consumersrsquo preferences for attributes of organic tomatoes
Table 3 Sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents
Variables Categories Number of respondents Percentage of sample
Gender Female 480 5628Male 373 4372
Agea18ndash45 years 404 473946ndash60 years 294 3447gt60 years 155 1814
EducationbHigh education 260 3045
Medium education 340 3986Low education 253 2970
Family income (per year)clt8015US$ 264 3132
8015ndash16030US$ 358 4247gt16030US$ 221 2621
aAccording to the China Statistical Yearbook individuals aged 18ndash45 years are classified as young 46ndash60 years are classified as middle-aged and over the ageof 60 are classified as old Respondents were classified per the same criteria in this study e age structure of respondents was consistent with that of theChinese population reported in the China Statistical Yearbook as well as with that of Shandong Province reported in the Shandong Statistical YearbookbBased on the level of education in Mainland China as well as the criteria used in the China and Shandong Statistical Yearbooks low education denotesprimary school or lower medium education denotes junior high or high school and high education denotes university or higher e education level ofrespondents was consistent with that of urban residents in Shandong Province as reported in the Shandong Statistical Yearbook and slightly higher than thatof Chinese urban residents as reported in the China Statistical Yearbook cBased on the economic development and consumer income levels in MainlandChina an annual family income of less than 8015US$ is defined as low income 8015ndash16030US$ is defined as medium income and greater than 16030US$is defined as high income As this study aimed to understand the willingness of consumers to pay for organic food participants were recruited from urbansupermarkets and business districts e income level of the participants was slightly higher than the per capita income of the Chinese and Shandongpopulations reported in the China and Shandong Statistical Yearbooks respectively
Journal of Food Quality 7
Consumer ethnocentrism and trust variables were held atthe sample average level Attribute variables entered as in-teractions were held at minus1
As shown in Table 6 there were considerable differencesin consumer WTP for different organic labels e order ofconsumer preference for the organic labels was not con-sistent with that of consumer trust shown in Table 7 Amongthe four organic labels the highest WTP was expressed forUSORG (US$ 1589) followed by ARORG (US$ 1116)JPORG (US$ 1027) and lastly by CNORG (US$ 0729) Interms of WTP for different certifiers consumers had thehighest WTP for USCERT (US$ 1768) followed by ACA-CERT (US$ 1216) ARCERT (US$ 1042) and finallyGOVCERT (US$ 0837) is is the same as the order ofmean trust in different certifiers shown in Table 4
Consumers tend to assume that the US as a developedcountry has stricter food quality management and organiccertification supervision7 erefore a much higher WTPwas expressed for USORG and USCERT is agrees with
Table 6 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay measured at the sampleaverage level of ethnocentrism and trust
Attribute level Coef SE 95 CIUSORG 1589lowastlowastlowast 0529 [0552 2626]JPORG 1027lowastlowastlowast 0374 [0294 1760]ARORG 1116lowastlowastlowast 0286 [0555 1677]CNORG 0729lowastlowastlowast 0307 [0127 1331]USCERT 1768lowastlowastlowast 0299 [1182 2354]ARCERT 1042lowastlowastlowast 0304 [0446 1638]GOVCERT 0837lowastlowastlowast 0234 [0378 1296]ACACERT 1216lowastlowastlowast 0295 [0638 1794]lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively
8 Journal of Food Quality
studies on country-of-origin effects that products (or ser-vices) from developed countries are always more popularthan those from developing countries [42] Of note a muchlower WTP was expressed for organic labels from Japan adeveloped country and was even slightly lower than theWTP for organic labels from Argentina a developingcountry By contrast the mean trust in USORG and JPORGwas similar and much higher than that in ARORG orCNORG as shown in Table 7 e deviation between trustand WTP ie relatively low WTP for JPORG might bebased on several reasons First consumers might considerthat Japan an island country with a small territory doesnot have competitive advantages in agricultural pro-duction second it might be related to consumer ethno-centrism and the complex Sino-Japanese relationshipAnother surprising finding was that a relatively high WTPwas expressed for organic labels from Argentina a countrythat is relatively similar to China in economic developmentA possible reason is that Argentina is a large agriculturalcountry with a competitive advantage in agriculturalproduction and the second largest organic farmland area inthe world It is also a large developing country like Chinawhich might generate positive country-of-origin effects onthe products (or services) of Argentina As shown in Ta-ble 6 the lowest WTP was expressed for CNORG Incontrast Alphonce and Alfnes and Lusk et al argued thatconsumers have greater loyalty to their own country anddiscriminate against other countries to some extent[46 47] e possible reasons for this inconsistency are asfollows (1) Many Chinese consumers believe that agri-cultural science and technology and management levels inChina fall far behind those of developed countries withorganic certification no exception In addition someconsumers exhibit blind faith in foreign products which isa belief primarily based on purchase experience Con-sumers can believe that products from developed countriesare of a higher quality than those made in China even whenquality is the same [7] (2)e misuse and even falsificationof organic labels has jeopardized the development of thisemerging market in China (After inspecting the authen-ticity of organic certification in 2014 the Certification andAccreditation Administration of the PRC declared a re-markable misuse rate of 58 in certification labels Ofthem 50 were due to the prolonged use of certificates286 were suspected of lacking organic codes 143 weresuspected of using counterfeit organic codes and 71 didnot use certification labels as specified Source Sohu httpmtsohucom20160621n455577833shtml) Numerouscertification fraud incidents have occurred in recent years
e ldquoChongqing Wal-Mart green porkrdquo incident in 2011and the ldquoGuizhou organic Maotairdquo incident in 2013 bothimpacted the authority of Chinese food safety certificationand reduced consumer trust in Chinese organic labelsus consumers believe that the reliability of organic labelsfrom other developing countries such as Argentina ishigher than that of China
e WTP estimates for certifiers in Table 6 showed thatconsumers were willing to pay higher premiums forGOVCERT than PRICERT Janssen and Hamm found thatconsumers in some countries have a higher WTP forgovernment-certified labels than private ones whereas theopposite is true in other countries furthermore consumersin some countries do not show significantly different WTPbetween the two labels and consumer preferences for labelscan vary with the type of organic product [5]
54 Consumer Ethnocentrism and WTP for Organic FoodTo further examine the sensitivity of consumer WTP basedon different levels of ethnocentrism using the parametricbootstrapping technique outlined in Hole we calculatedWTP measures for each type of organic label and certifierbased on different levels of ETH [45] In this calculation thelevels of trust in labels (LTRUST) and trust in certifiers(CTRUST) were held at sample average while ETH wasallowed to change from 1 to 7 taking only integer valuesTable 8 shows the result
As seen in Table 8 there were considerable differences inthe order of preference for the organic labels among the ETHlevels e greatest difference was observed in their WTP forJapanese and Chinese organic labels When the level of ETH islow the order of WTP for organic labels from differentcountries was USORGgt JPORGgtARORGgtCNORG eirWTP for USORG and JPORG was much higher than that forARORG which was in turn much higher than that forCNORG With increases in ETH the WTP for USORG andARORG decreased especially for JPORG but the WTP forCNORG increased When the level of ETH is relatively highthere is a different WTP order for organic labels from differentcountries that is USORGgtCNORGgtARORGgt JPORGey showed amuch higherWTP for CNORG and although itwas lower than the WTP for USORG it was higher than thatfor ARORG and JPORG (which had the lowestWTP) Overallwith the increase in ETH consumers showed a lower WTP forforeign organic labels especially for those from Japan and asignificantly higher WTP for organic labels from China isindicated that ETH had a considerable impact on consumerpreferences
Table 7 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay for organic labels based on different levels of trust in organic labels
Label LTRUST1 LTRUST 2 LTRUST 3 LTRUST 4 LTRUST 5 LTRUST 6 LTRUST 7USORG 1531lowastlowastlowast (0583) 1511lowastlowastlowast (0579) 1576lowastlowastlowast (0548) 1588lowastlowastlowast (0573) 1592lowastlowastlowast (0566) 1607lowastlowastlowast (0602) 1608lowastlowastlowast (0598)JPORG 0903lowastlowastlowast (0341) 0923lowastlowastlowast (0349) 0955lowastlowastlowast (0362) 1056lowastlowastlowast (0359) 1109lowastlowastlowast (0403) 1111lowastlowastlowast (0412) 1114lowastlowastlowast (0409)ARORG 1112lowastlowastlowast (0409) 1108lowastlowastlowast (0396) 1134lowastlowastlowast (0421) 1197lowastlowastlowast (0430) 1211lowastlowastlowast (0462) 1257lowastlowastlowast (0473) 1266lowastlowastlowast (0471)CNORG 0599lowastlowastlowast (0212) 0605lowastlowastlowast (0227) 0710lowastlowastlowast (0221) 0715lowastlowastlowast (0247) 0813lowastlowastlowast (0289) 0907lowastlowastlowast (0301) 0915lowastlowastlowast (0315)lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Standard errors of consumerWTPs are reported within the brackets Consumerethnocentrism and trust in certifiers are held at the sample average level
Journal of Food Quality 9
Table 8 also shows that with the increase in ETHconsumer WTP slightly increased for Chinese certifiersslightly decreased for USCERT and remained substantiallyunchanged for ARCERT Moreover the order of preferencesfor certifiers remains unchanged is indicated that thepreferences of Chinese consumers for domestic and foreigncertifiers were not affected by ethnocentrism to any greatextent Since its reformation the Chinese government hasgenerally adopted a policy of encouraging direct foreigninvestment In this context Chinese consumers have alsowelcomed direct foreign investment and view its contributionto domestic employment and economic growth positivelyHowever this speculation needs further verification
55 Trust Effects on Preferences and WTP For a similarreason WTP measured at different levels of trust for eachtype of organic label and certifier was calculated whileallowing the trust measures to change from 1 to 7 takingevery integer values in between When calculating the im-pact of trust in organic labels (LTRUST) consumer eth-nocentrism (ETH) and trust in certifiers (CTRUST) wereheld at sample average Variables ETH and LTRUST wereheld at the sample average while calculating the impact ofCTRUST e results are shown in Tables 7 and 9
Based on results in Table 7 with the increase in con-sumer trust (the respondents were grouped in five differentways per their trust in the four organic labels as well asaverage trust e WTP for each type of organic label wasthen calculated for the different groups However only theWTP of respondents grouped by average trust (AVERAGE)are discussed in this paper Based on the survey data thecorrelation coefficients between the trust scores for thedifferent organic labels were all greater than 08 indicating apositive correlation between trust scores for each type oforganic label Although consumer trust varied among theorganic labels consumers with a higher trust in a certainorganic label were more inclined to trust the other threetypes of organic labels Our calculation results also showedno significant differences in WTP among the trust groupswhen the respondents were grouped as mentioned aboveGiven space limitations the calculation results for all groupsare not presented e same is true for the grouping ofrespondents by their trust in different certifiers) the order ofpreference for the organic labels remained the sameUSORGgtARORGgt JPORGgtCNORG Similarly the orderof preference for the certifiers remained the same
USCERTgtACACERTgtARCERTgtGOVCERT Howeverwith the increase in trust consumer WTP for each type oforganic label and certifier generally increased which cor-roborates previous research on consumer WTP for organicfood12 It is worth noting that in general the difference inWTP among organic labels decreased with the increase intrust For example according to Table 7 when consumertrust in organic labels increased from 1 to 7 the differencebetween their WTP for a US label and a Chinese labeldecreased fromUS$ 0932 to $ 0693 respectively ConsumerWTP for other labels showed a similar trend
Similarly the data in Table 9 indicate that the differencesin WTP among certifiers also decreased with the increase intrust (Table 9) Due to the frequent food safety incidents andscandals in China in recent years consumers in the low trustgroups had lower levels of trust in Chinese organic labels andcertifiers but relatively higher levels of trust in foreignorganic labels and foreign-invested certifiers thus resultingin greater differences in their WTP is suggests that anincrease in consumer trust in organic certification will helpto enhance WTP especially for Chinese organic labels andcertifiers
6 Conclusions and Limitations
61 Conclusions In this paper consumer WTP for organiclabels from different sources was examined using the choiceexperiment method and mixed logit model Furthermorethe impacts of consumer ethnocentrism and trust on con-sumer preferences were analyzed e main conclusions areas follows (1) Mean consumer trust in organic labels variedwith the country of origin e highest level of trust wasfound in US organic labels followed by Japanese Argentineand Chinese organic labels Consumer trust in certifiers alsosignificantly differed with the country of origin e highestlevel of trust was found in US-invested certifiers followed byChinese academic institution-supported Argentine-invested and Chinese government-supported certifiersand lastly in Chinese private certifiers (2) Consumer WTPvaried greatly among the organic labels e highest WTPwas expressed for US organic labels followed by Argentineand Japanese organic labels and lastly Chinese organic la-bels e order of WTP was not consistent with that ofconsumer trust mainly due to the relatively low WTP forJapanese organic labels Chinese consumers not only showedstrong preference for US organic labels but also the highest
Table 8 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay based on different levels of ethnocentrism
Level ETH 1 ETH 2 ETH 3 ETH 4 ETH 5 ETH 6 ETH 7USORG 1638lowastlowastlowast 1618lowastlowastlowast 1597lowastlowastlowast 1582lowastlowastlowast 1501lowastlowastlowast 1428lowastlowastlowast 1431lowastlowastlowastJPORG 1321lowastlowastlowast 1317lowastlowastlowast 1205lowastlowastlowast 1113lowastlowastlowast 0954lowastlowastlowast 0886lowastlowastlowast 0884lowastlowastlowastARORG 1129lowastlowastlowast 1125lowastlowastlowast 1125lowastlowastlowast 1121lowastlowastlowast 1003lowastlowastlowast 0922lowastlowastlowast 0829lowastlowastlowastCNORG 0685lowastlowastlowast 0698lowastlowastlowast 0738lowastlowastlowast 0754lowastlowastlowast 0893lowastlowastlowast 1029lowastlowastlowast 1253lowastlowastlowastUSCERT 1508lowastlowastlowast 1504lowastlowastlowast 1496lowastlowastlowast 1486lowastlowastlowast 1395lowastlowastlowast 1370lowastlowastlowast 1371lowastlowastlowastARCERT 1460lowastlowastlowast 1451lowastlowastlowast 1448lowastlowastlowast 1436lowastlowastlowast 1431lowastlowastlowast 1434lowastlowastlowast 1433lowastlowastlowastGOVCERT 1080lowastlowastlowast 1085lowastlowastlowast 1107lowastlowastlowast 1115lowastlowastlowast 1311lowastlowastlowast 1308lowastlowastlowast 1319lowastlowastlowastACACERT 0891lowastlowastlowast 0882lowastlowastlowast 0921lowastlowastlowast 0936lowastlowastlowast 1086lowastlowastlowast 1165lowastlowastlowast 1172lowastlowastlowastlowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowast denote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Variables LTRUST and CTRUST are held at the sample average level
10 Journal of Food Quality
WTP for US-invested certifiers followed by Chinese aca-demic institution-supported Argentine-invested and Chi-nese government-supported certifiersis is the same as theorder of mean trust in different certifiers (3) Certification oforganic labels from their respective countries improvedChinese consumer preferences In addition academicinstitution-supported certifier exhibited significantly posi-tive interactions with foreign organic labels (4) Chineseconsumers did not show high ethnocentrism Howeverthere was a considerable discrepancy in the order of pref-erence for the organic labels among the ETH levels With theincrease in consumer ethnocentrism consumers showed asubstantially lower WTP for Japanese organic labels and asignificantly higher WTP for Chinese organic labels Con-sumer WTP for certifiers did not change significantly withthe increase in ETH with a slight increase for Chinesecertifiers slight decrease for US-invested certifiers andstability for Argentine-invested certifiers (5) e order ofpreference for different organic labels and that for variouscertifiers did not change with the increase in consumer trustHowever consumer WTP for each type of organic labelgenerally increased with the increase in trust It is worthnoting that the differences in consumerWTP among organiclabels and among certifiers decreased with the increase intrust
Overall Chinese consumers showed different WTPs fororganic labels from different sources due to consumerethnocentrism and trustese conclusions should serve as avital basis for food suppliers in their selection of certificationservices and target market positioning Moreover this re-search can not only serve as a guidance for the reformationof the certification system and development of the certifiedfood market in China but also provide information toforeign certification service providers when entering theChinese market
62Limitations is study had the following limitations (1)Our research was conducted during the period when Sino-Japanese economic and trade relations had cooled due to theDiaoyu Islands dispute and other issues is historicalbackground inevitably affected consumer attitudes towardsJapanese products or services to varying degrees usconsumer WTP for Japanese organic labels should betracked over a longer period (2) Countries-of-origins werelimited to the US Japan Argentina and ChinaeWTPs ofChinese consumers for organic labels from other countriesregions such as Canada and Brazil need to be further in-vestigated (3) Consumer trust in different organic labels and
certifiers were examined separately however trust was notexamined in regards to a specific type of organic label from aspecific type of certifier such as a US organic label issued bya Chinese government-supported certifier which should beexamined in future research
Data Availability
e data used to support the findings of this study areavailable from the corresponding author upon request
Conflicts of Interest
e authors declare that there are no conflicts of interestregarding the publication of this article
Acknowledgments
is paper was supported by the study of evaluation of socialwelfare of quality and safety certification policy for agri-cultural products in the new era in China a project of theSocial Science Foundation of China (Approval no18BJY153)
References
[1] S J Yin R Li L H Wu and X J Chen Introduction to 2018China Development Report on Food Satety Peking UniversityPress Beijing China 2018
[2] M R Darby and E Karni ldquoFree competition and the optimalamount of fraudrdquo Journal of Law and Economics vol 16 no 1pp 67ndash88 1973
[3] F Albersmeier H Schulze and A Spiller ldquoSystem dynamicsin food quality certifications development of an audit in-tegrity systemrdquo International Journal of Food System Dy-namics vol 1 no 1 pp 69ndash81 2010
[4] E Golan F Kuchler L Mitchell C Greene and A JessupldquoEconomics of food labellingrdquo Journal of Consumer Policyvol 24 no 2 pp 117ndash184 2001
[5] M Janssen and U Hamm ldquoProduct labelling in the marketfor organic food consumer preferences and willingness-to-pay for different organic certification logosrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 25 no 1 pp 9ndash22 2012
[6] S J Yin Information Asymmetry Certification Effectivenessand Consumer Preferences An Case Study of Organic FoodChina Social Sciences Press Beijing China 2013
[7] L H Wu S J Yin Y J Xu and D Zhu ldquoEffectiveness ofChinarsquos organic food certification policy consumer prefer-ences for infant milk formula with different organic certifi-cation labelsrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevue canadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 62 no 4 pp 545ndash5682014
Table 9 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay for certifiers based on different levels of trust in certifiers
Certifiers CTRUST1 CTRUST 2 CTRUST 3 CTRUST 4 CTRUST 5 CTRUST 6 CTRUST 7USCERT 1473lowastlowastlowast (0521) 1481lowastlowastlowast (0499) 1521lowastlowastlowast (0532) 1632lowastlowastlowast (0578) 1669lowastlowastlowast (0592) 1717lowastlowastlowast (0623) 1785lowastlowastlowast (0637)ARCERT 0756lowastlowastlowast (0213) 0803lowastlowastlowast (0201) 0956lowastlowastlowast (0266) 1127lowastlowastlowast (0242) 1151lowastlowastlowast (0308) 1286lowastlowastlowast (0403) 1301lowastlowastlowast (0424)GOVCERT 0974lowastlowastlowast (0359) 1006lowastlowastlowast (0362) 1128lowastlowastlowast (0412) 1315lowastlowastlowast (0437) 1346lowastlowastlowast (0464) 1385lowastlowastlowast (0502) 1402lowastlowastlowast (0521)ACACERT 0713lowastlowastlowast (0245) 0721lowastlowastlowast (0257) 0974lowastlowastlowast (0291) 1102lowastlowastlowast (0286) 1142lowastlowastlowast (0331) 1213lowastlowastlowast (0392) 1291lowastlowastlowast (0378)lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Standard errors of consumersrsquoWTPs are reported within the brackets Consumerethnocentrism and trust in organic labels are held at the sample average level
Journal of Food Quality 11
[8] National Bureau of Statistics of China National StatisticalYearbook China Statistics Press Beijing China 2015
[9] FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations) FAO Statistical Yearbooks FAO Rome Italy 2016httpwwwfaoorgfaostatendata
[10] L Probst E Houedjofonon H M Ayerakwa and R HaasldquoWill they buy it e potential for marketing organic veg-etables in the food vending sector to strengthen vegetablesafety a choice experiment study in threeWest African citiesrdquoFood Policy vol 37 no 3 pp 296ndash308 2012
[11] V Falguera N Aliguer and M Falguera ldquoAn integratedapproach to current trends in food consumption movingtoward functional and organic productsrdquo Food Controlvol 26 no 2 pp 274ndash281 2012
[12] R D Liu Z Pieniak and W Verbeke ldquoConsumersrsquo attitudesand behaviour towards safe food in China a reviewrdquo FoodControl vol 33 no 1 pp 93ndash104 2013
[13] F Soler J M Gil andM Sanchez ldquoConsumer acceptability oforganic food in Spain results from an experimental auctionmarketrdquo British Food Journal vol 104 no 8 pp 670ndash6872002
[14] R B Tranter R M Bennett L Costa et al ldquoConsumersrsquowillingness-to-pay for organic conversion-grade food evi-dence from five EU countriesrdquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 287ndash294 2009
[15] S Rousseau and L Vranken ldquoGreen market expansion byreducing information asymmetries evidence for labeled or-ganic food productsrdquo Food Policy vol 40 no 2 pp 31ndash432013
[16] F Napolitano and A Braghieri ldquoEffect of information aboutorganic production on beef liking and consumer willingnessto payrdquo Food Quality and Preference vol 21 no 2pp 207ndash212 2010
[17] C Hempel and U Hamm ldquoHow important is local food toorganic-minded consumersrdquo Appetite vol 96 no 1pp 309ndash318 2016
[18] I Olesen F Alfnes M B Roslashra and K Kolstad ldquoElicitingconsumersrsquo willingness to pay for organic and welfare-labelledsalmon in a non-hypothetical choice experimentrdquo LivestockScience vol 127 no 2-3 pp 218ndash226 2010
[19] E J Van Loo V Caputo R M Nayga J F Meullenet andS C Ricke ldquoConsumer willingness to pay for organic chickenbreast evidence from choice experimentrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 22 no 7 pp 603ndash613 2011
[20] B Roitner-Schobesberger I Darnhofer S Somsook andC R Vogl ldquoConsumer perceptions of organic foods inBangkok ailandrdquo Food Policy vol 33 no 2 pp 112ndash1212008
[21] G Vittersoslash and T Tangeland ldquoe role of consumers intransitions towards sustainable food consumption the case oforganic food in Norwayrdquo Journal of Cleaner Productionvol 92 no 1 pp 91ndash99 2015
[22] S J Yin M Chen Y S Chen Y Xu Z Zou and YiqinWangldquoConsumer trust in organic milk of different brands the roleof Chinese organic labelrdquo British Food Journal vol 118 no 7pp 1769ndash1782 2016
[23] J L Hsu and H P Nien ldquoWho are ethnocentric Examiningconsumer ethnocentrism in Chinese societiesrdquo Journal ofConsumer Behaviour vol 7 no 6 pp 436ndash447 2008
[24] G Hustvedt K A Carroll and J C Bernard ldquoConsumerethnocentricity and preferences for wool products by countryof origin and manufacturerdquo International Journal of Con-sumer Studies vol 37 no 5 pp 498ndash506 2013
[25] T A Shimp and S Sharma ldquoConsumer ethnocentrismconstruction and validation of the CETSCALErdquo Journal ofMarketing Research vol 24 no 3 pp 280ndash289 1987
[26] L Yan and H He ldquoEvaluation of international brand alli-ances brand order and consumer ethnocentrismrdquo Journal ofBusiness Research vol 66 no 1 pp 89ndash97 2013
[27] K L Granzin and J J Painter ldquoMotivational influences onldquobuy domesticrdquo purchasing marketing management impli-cations from a study of two nationsrdquo Journal of InternationalMarketing vol 9 no 2 pp 73ndash96 2001
[28] J G Klein R Ettenson and M D Morris ldquoe animositymodel of foreign product purchase an empirical test in thePeoplersquos Republic of Chinardquo Journal of Marketing vol 62no 1 pp 89ndash100 1998
[29] F Liu J Murphy J Li and X Liu ldquoEnglish and Chinese therole of consumer ethnocentrism and country of origin inChinese attitudes towards store signsrdquo Australasian Mar-keting Journal vol 14 no 2 pp 5ndash16 2007
[30] M Raskovic Z Ding V Skare ETH O Dosen and V ZabkarldquoComparing consumer innovativeness and ethnocentrism ofyoung-adult consumersrdquo Journal of Business Research vol 69no 9 pp 3682ndash3686 2016
[31] J He and C L Wang ldquoCultural identity and consumerethnocentrism impacts on preference and purchase of do-mestic versus import brands an empirical study in ChinardquoJournal of Business Research vol 68 no 6 pp 1225ndash12332015
[32] W Helga and J Lernoud $e world of organic agriculturestatistics and emerging trends 2014 httporgprintsorg251721willer-lernoud-2014-world-of-organicpdf
[33] R M Dawes and B Corrigan ldquoLinear models in decisionmakingrdquo Psychological Bulletin vol 81 no 2 pp 95ndash1061974
[34] J J Louviere D A Hensher and J D Swait Stated ChoiceMethods Analysis and Applications Cambridge UniversityPress Cambridge UK 2000
[35] G J Zhuang N Zhou and L X Zhou ldquoNational-brandconsciousness brand characteristics and consumer prefer-ence for indigenous brandsrdquo Management World vol 21pp 85ndash94 2006
[36] E Delgado-Ballester and J L Munuera-Aleman ldquoBrand trustin the context of consumer loyaltyrdquo European Journal ofMarketing vol 35 no 11-12 pp 1238ndash1258 2001
[37] R Lassoued J E Hobbs E T Micheels and D D ZhangldquoConsumer trust in chicken brands a structural equationmodelrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevuecanadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 63 no 4 pp 621ndash647 2015
[38] K J Lancaster ldquoA new approach to consumer theoryrdquoJournal of Political Economy vol 74 no 2 pp 132ndash157 1966
[39] J S James B J Rickard and W J Rossman ldquoProduct dif-ferentiation and market segmentation in applesauce using achoice experiment to assess the value of organic local andnutrition attributesrdquo Agricultural and Resource EconomicsReview vol 38 no 3 pp 357ndash370 2009
[40] D McFadden and K Train ldquoMixed MNL models for discreteresponserdquo Journal of Applied Econometrics vol 15 no 5pp 447ndash470 2000
[41] A Claret L Guerrero E Aguirre et al ldquoConsumer prefer-ences for sea fish using conjoint analysis exploratory study ofthe importance of country of origin obtaining methodstorage conditions and purchasing pricerdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 26 no 2 pp 259ndash266 2012
12 Journal of Food Quality
[42] Y Y Cai and J X He ldquoJoy and peace an empirical study onthe effect of positive emotion on the country of originrdquoJournal of Marketing Science vol 8 pp 76ndash87 2012
[43] D Ubilava and K Foster ldquoQuality certification vs producttraceability consumer preferences for informational attri-butes of pork in Georgiardquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 305ndash310 2009
[44] J L Lusk J Roosen and J A Fox ldquoDemand for beef from cattleadministered growth hormones or fed genetically modifiedcorn a comparison of consumers in France Germany theUnited Kingdom and the United Statesrdquo American Journal ofAgricultural Economics vol 85 no 1 pp 16ndash29 2003
[45] A R Hole ldquoA comparison of approaches to estimatingconfidence intervals for willingness to pay measuresrdquo HealthEconomics vol 16 no 8 pp 827ndash840 2007
[46] R Alphonce and F Alfnes ldquoConsumer willingness to pay forfood safety in Tanzania an incentive-aligned conjoint anal-ysisrdquo International Journal of Consumer Studies vol 36 no 4pp 394ndash400 2012
[47] J L Lusk J Brown T Mark I Proseku R ompson andJ Welsh ldquoConsumer behavior public policy and country-of-origin labellingrdquo Review of Agricultural Economics vol 28no 2 pp 284ndash292 2006
the US Japan and Argentina In addition these organic labelscan be issued by different certifiers eg the ChinaOrganic FoodCertification Center under the Chinese Ministry of Agricultureor the foreign-funded CERES (Shanghai) Certification Co LtdHowever the relatively immature Chinese organic food marketcontinues to experience problems such as deficiency of su-pervision unclear certificate issuers lack of manufacturer self-discipline and unfair competition [6] Constant food safetyscares such as fake organic food (for instance in 2013 themediareported that the China KweichowMoutai Co was suspected ofusing fake organic raw ingredients in the production of organicmaotai a well known high-profile liquor brand causingwidespread concern) have led to market chaos in the Chineseorganic food industry resulting in consumer distrust of organicfood labeled by domestic certifiers [7] Organic labels as well asorganic certifiers fromother countries have gained popularity inChina Currently there are 83 certifiers in China andmore than20 of them are foreign-funded Most of these certifiers can issueseveral labels from different countries However there has beenfew research on consumer preference for labels from diversecountries or certifiers is triggers several questions First doChinese consumers prefer organic labels fromcertain countriesSecond do these preferences interact with certifiers issuing thelabels or are they affected by consumer ethnocentrismird ifconsumers have more trust in organic labels from certaincountries or certifiers how does their trust affects consumerwillingness to pay (WTP) ese questions are the primaryfocus points of this paper
In this study we focused on organic tomatoes China isboth a major vegetable producing and consuming countrywith vegetable production of 7600548 million tons in 2014and household per capita purchase of fresh vegetables of1123 kg in 2012 [8] Tomatoes are one of the most commonlyproduced and consumed vegetables in China (Technicallytomatoes are a type of fruit (berry) but following the con-ventions of the Chinese grocery listings they are referred to asa type of vegetable in this study) In 2012 Chinese tomatoproduction was 50million tons accounting for approximately309 of world tomato production [9] In addition tomatoproducers in China are generally small-sized with dispersedproduction and without any major brand names ese traitshave reduced the influence of unnecessary brand affiliation onconsumer choice in our study
2 Literature Review
Being organic is a credence attribute which is difficult toassess at the time of purchase and even after consumptionAn organic certification label is an important basis forconsumers to identify organic food [10] Many reviews havedealt with the topic of consumer preference for organic food[11 12] Previous studies have examined consumerWTP fororganic food(s) (such as apples) or compared consumerWTP for organic food with other food attributes such aslocal production or animal welfare labels Gil et al foundthat consumer WTP for organic food ranged between11133 and 12529 [13] Tranter et al revealed thatconsumers were prepared to pay a premium for conversion-grade produce of around half the premium for organic
produce with vegetables attracting a higher premium thanmeat [14] Soler et al investigated Spanish consumer WTPfor organic food and showed that 70 of respondentsexpressed a willingness to pay a premium for organic oliveoil [13] Rousseau and Vranken found that Flemish con-sumers were willing to pay a premium for organic labeledapples [15] Napolitano and Braghieri investigated the WTPof Italian consumers for conventional and organic beef andfound there was a significant relationship between personalpreference and WTP for organic food [16] Hempel andHamm combined a consumer survey with an in-store choiceexperiment to study consumer preferences for organic andlocal foods and determined that organic-minded consumers(ie those who regarded organic food production as im-portant) had stronger preferences for organic and localproducts [17] Olesen et al used a choice experiment to findthat Norwegian consumers preferred organic and animalwelfare-labeled salmon to otherwise identical salmon fromconventional farms [18]
To the best of our knowledge however few studies havecompared consumer WTP for different organic labelsJanssen and Hamm investigated different organic certifi-cation labels in six European countries and found thatconsumer WTP for different labels varied greatly [5] VanLoo et al analyzed chicken breast that carried a United StatesDepartment of Agriculture (USDA) organic label or ageneral organic certification label with consumer WTP forthe former found to be much higher [19] Wu et al assessedconsumer WTP for organic labels from the EU US andChina and found that Chinese consumers show a higherWTP for EU than for Chinese organic labels [7] Built uponthese studies we further assess the effect of different organiccertifiers while considering the impact of consumer trust andethnocentrism
e ability of organic labels to provide food qualityassurance to consumers and thus reducing informationasymmetry between suppliers and buyers depends onconsumer trust in organic labels [7 12] Roitner-Schobesberger et al conducted a sample survey in ai-land and found consumer WTP was affected by trust [20]Vittersoslash and Tangeland discussed challenges towards thepurchase of organic food among Norwegian consumers anddemonstrated that trust in the labeling system was signifi-cant [21] Yin et al focused on consumer trust in Chineseorganically labeled milk and found that consumers generallydid not trust this product [22] As organic labels are issuedby specific organic certifiers consumer trust in organiclabels is inevitably related to their trust in the label issuersHowever consumer trust in different organic certifiers andits impact on WTP have not yet been studied
Similar to that in many other countries organic foodlabels on the Chinese market can come from differentcountries or from certifiers from different countries usconsumer WTP for these organic labels might be affected byconsumer ethnocentrism Empirical studies have indicatedthat consumers with high ethnocentrism tend to prefer tobuy domestic products and have a prejudice against foreignproducts [23ndash26] e purchase of foreign products isthought to threaten national enterprises and in some cases
2 Journal of Food Quality
is considered immoral with resulting ethical conflicts[25 27 28] Historically Chinese consumer ethnocentrismhas resulted from the strong impact of foreign capital onnational capital Since the 1980s with increasing integrationof China to the world economy Chinese attitudes towardsproducts from overseas have become increasingly complexDue to numerous interacting factors there are varyingdegrees of heterogeneity in consumer ethnocentrism amongdifferent products and consumer groups NeverthelessChinese consumers generally do not show high ethnocen-trism [29 30] Some studies have examined the impact ofethnocentrism on Chinese consumer preferences forproducts or brands from different countries [23 29] He andWang reported that Chinese consumer ethnocentrism has anegative impact on relative preference for import brands butnot on actual buying of domestic or import brands [31] Liuet al found that country of origin could moderate the impactof consumer ethnocentrism on foreign brand evaluationssignificantly so for a US brand but insignificant when thecountry of origin was Australia [29] However such studieshave primarily focused on physical products such as au-tomobiles and bottled water [23 31] rather than productattributes such as certification
In the present study we investigate consumer trust inorganic labels from different countries and different types oforganic certifiers Consumer WTP for organic labels fromdifferent countries and different types of organic certifiers aswell as the interactions between them were evaluated andcompared e possible impacts of consumer trust andethnocentrism on consumer preferences were also analyzed
3 Methodology
31 Choice Experiment We examined consumer WTP fororganic labels from different countries and certifiers througha consumer survey featuring a choice experiment Fivedifferent labels were considered US organic label (USORG)Japanese organic label (JPORG) Argentine organic label(ARORG) Chinese organic label (CNORG) and no organiclabel (NOORG) e reasons for setting such attribute levelsare as follows (1) A previous empirical study and focusgroup interview showed that Chinese consumers are rela-tively familiar with USORG JPORG ARORG andCNORG6 (In the focus group interview organic labels from15 different countriesregions were presented e partici-pants were then asked to mark the labels they knew Organiclabels known by more than 30 of participants includedChinese organic labels (76) US organic labels (47) EUorganic labels (46) Japanese organic labels (42) NewZealand organic labels (41) Australian organic labels(37) Argentine organic labels (18) and Brazilian organiclabels (17) e statistical results from the formal surveywere substantially similar to the above results) (2) Both theUS and Japan are important trading partners with ChinaJapan is geographically close to China and is the only Asiancountry in the Group of Seven (G7) Although China andJapan have a long history of exchange Chinese consumershave boycotted Japanese goods due to historical and terri-torial issues28 erefore USORG and JPORG were selected
as representatives of certification services from developedcountriesregions with different types of association withChina (3) Although ARORG is not as well-known toChinese consumers it is still one of the most well-knownorganic labels from developing countriesregions MoreoverArgentina is second only to the US in land devoted to or-ganic agricultural production [32] and is a leader amongdeveloping countries ARORG was thus chosen as a rep-resentative of the developing world
Because organic labels must be approved and issued byspecific organic certifiers organic certifier was introduced asan attribute in the choice experiment to examine organiclabel and certifier interaction e reason for examining thisinteraction is that according to Dawes and Corrigan 70ndash90 of consumer utility variance is explained by the maineffects of an attribute and as much as 5ndash15 by two-wayinteractions [33] erefore considering two-way in-teractions can not only provide insights into understandingthe interaction effects between the attributes but also helpreduce errors in estimating the main effect of an attribute[34] Similar to that of most countries there are many(approximately 20) organic certifiers in China which can bedivided into four types (1) certifiers established under therelevant government departments eg the China OrganicFood Certification Center under the Chinese Ministry ofAgriculture (2) certifiers established under academic re-search institutions eg Northwest AampF University Certifierunder the Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University(3) private certifiers eg Hangzhou Wantai CertificationLimited and (4) foreign-invested certifiers approved by theCertification and Accreditation Administration of the PRCFor instance the CERES (Shanghai) Certification Co Ltd isa joint venture established in China by the CERES Certi-fication of Environmental Standards GmbH Germany Allfour types of certifiers can provide organic certificationservices in China or other countries on a cooperative orcommission basis (According to the Regulations of thePeoplersquos Republic of China on Certification and Accredi-tation foreign certifiers are not allowed to provide organiccertification services in China without preapproval)erefore the certifier attribute was set at five levels Chinesegovernment-supported (GOVCERT) Chinese private(PRICERT) Chinese academic institution-supported(ACACERT) developed country-invested and developingcountry-invested certifiers To facilitate participant selectionUS-invested certifiers (USCERT) and Argentine-investedcertifiers (ARCERT) were used to represent developedand developing country-invested certifiers respectively
For the attribute price (PRICE) high (14 $kg) medium(11 $kg) and low (08 $kg) levels were set per the actualmarket price of tomatoes in supermarkets and organic foodstores (To facilitate understanding we converted theoriginal RMB yuan currency unit into US dollars in ac-cordance with the exchange rate on November 1 2015 (1 USdollar 63171 RMB))
e final attributes and their levels which are shown inTable 1 resulted in 5 times 5 times 3 75 virtual tomato productoptions Each choice task contained two virtual tomatoproduct options as well as an opt-out option If a full
Journal of Food Quality 3
factorial design was used the participants had to completeC275 2775 choice tasks which is unrealistic erefore a
fractional factorial design (FFD) was used and the first-orderinteraction effect was considered in order to reduce thenumber of tasks while ensuring efficiency Five versionswere generated using SAS software each with 15 tasks for adesign D-efficiency of 100 (see Figure 1 for an example of achoice task)
32 Consumer Ethnocentrism and Trust in Labels from Dif-ferent Countries Consumer ethnocentrism and consumertrust in different labels or different certifiers were alsocollected in the consumer survey
321 Consumer Ethnocentrism To quantify consumerethnocentrism survey participants indicated their agree-ment with six items in the questionnaire using a Likert scalefrom 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree) e items wereselected based on consumer ethnocentrism scales and sur-veys used by previous researchers [25 35] Only one factorwas extracted after applying factor analysis of the collectedanswers Following Zhuang et al and after removing oneitem with the lowest item-total correlation a five-itemconsumer ethnocentrism scale (α 0727) was obtained[25] Table 2 lists the items and their mean scores econsumer ethnocentrism propensity score (ETH) was cal-culated for each survey participant by adding the scores ofeach item and dividing by five
322 Consumer Trust in Different Labels and CertifiersConsumer trust in organic labels from each country wasmeasured using two seven-point Likert scale (α 0733)questions as per Delgado-Ballester and Munuera-Alemanwho allowed respondents to provide a self-judgment using aseven-point Likert scale (the agreedisagree anchor points)[36] (In our survey we did not want to impose a definitionof food quality upon respondents Rather it was treated as abroad concept that could encompass many componentsincluding food safety e two questions are as follows (a) Ithink that the tomato I buy with this label can be trusted forits high quality (b) I think that the tomato I buy with thislabel has reliable quality e mean scores of the two itemsare 4962 and 4938 respectively) e index of participantsrsquo
trust in organic labels (LTRUST) was calculated by averagingthe scores of the two items
Consumer trust in each organic certifier (CTRUST) wasmeasured using the similar two-item scale (α 0723) pre-viously to investigate respondentsrsquo trust in food suppliers[37] (e two questions are as follows (a) in general I canrely on organic certifiers to supervise organic suppliers toprovide high quality tomatoes (b) in general I think thatorganic certifiers can be trusted to ensure that tomatoes areof high quality e mean scores of the two items are 4786and 4934 respectively) Participants indicated theiragreement with seven items in the questionnaire using aLikert scale from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree) eindex of participantsrsquo trust in organic certifiers (CTRUST)was calculated by averaging the scores of these two items
GOVCERT USCERT
NoneOrganiclabel
Certificationbody
08US$kgPrice 14US$kg
Figure 1 Sample choice task
Table 2 Consumer ethnocentrism scale
Item description Mean scoresChinese people should give priority to domesticproducts in their purchasing decisions to protect thenational industry
3756
I am proud of the development of the Chinesenational enterprises 4364
I am worried about the threat of foreign products toChinarsquos related industries and markets 3757
I am uneasy about the expansion of foreign brandsor products in China 3752
Chinese people should use Chinese products asmuch as possible 4080
Acceptance of Chinese products by consumers isdirectly related to the sustainable development ofnational enterprises and the Chinese economya
3851
α value 0727Explanation power of the overall scale 4876ais item was not used in the calculation of the ethnocentrism propensityscore because of its low correlation coefficient with the overall scale
Table 1 Attributes and attribute levels used in the choice ex-periment design
Attribute LevelOrganiclabel
US organic label Japanese organic label Argentineorganic label Chinese organic label no label
Certifiers
Chinese government-supported certifiers Chineseprivate certifiers Chinese academic institution-supported certifiers US-invested certifiers
33 EconometricModelling e econometric analysis of thechoice data was based on random utility theory [38] As-suming individual consumers are rational they will choosethe product (ie tomato) option with the maximum utilityUtility Uni obtained by consumer n choosing tomato option i
can be defined as follows
Uni Vni + εni
Vni Xniβ(1)
where Vni and εni are the deterministic and stochastic termsof utility respectively indicating that the true consumerutility is unobservable from the perspective of researchers Ifconsumer n maximizes hisher utility by choosing tomatooption ia in choice set C the probability of consumer n
choosing tomato option i can be defined as follows
Pni Prob Uni gtUnj j 1 J jne i1113872 1113873
Pni Prob εni minus εnj gtUnj minusUni j 1 J jne i1113872 1113873
(2)
Assuming εni(i 1 J) follows an independent andidentically distributed type I maximum extreme-value dis-tribution the probability of consumer n choosing tomatooption i can be expressed as follows [39]
Pni eXiβ
1113936Jj1e
Xiβ i 1 J (3)
is is the conditional logit model (MNL) e MNLmodel assumes that consumer preferences are homoge-neous although this can be inconsistent with the actualsituation A more realistic assumption is that consumerpreferences are heterogeneous In other words βmay not befixed but stochastic and follows a certain distributionGiven this assumption the utility obtained by consumer i
choosing option m in situation t can be defined as follows[40]
Uimt βiprimeXimt + eimt (4)
where Ximt is the vector of observable variables associatedwith the option and decision maker βi is the coefficientvector of consumer i with respect to these variables and eimt
is a stochastic term is utility function can be furtherexpressed as follows
Uimt β +Ωprimeηi( 1113857primeXimt + eimt (5)
where β is the mean of vector βi Ωprimeηi represents tasteheterogeneity and Ω is the Cholesky matrix considering thecorrelation between the random coefficients βi An appro-priate distribution assumption can be made for randomdeviation ηi e unconditional probability is the integral ofthe logit probability over the density function of βi
Pimt 1113946eβprimeXimt
1113936jeβprimeXijt
⎛⎝ ⎞⎠f(β)dβ (6)
where f(β) is the multivariate probability density functionEquation (6) is a generalized form of the MNL model
known as the mixed logit (ML)model (or random parameterlogit model) Assuming that the consumer makes a choice atT different times and that the choice sequence isI i1 iT1113864 1113865 the probability for the consumer choosing thesequence is as follows
LiT(β) 1113945T
t1
eβiprimeXiitt
1113936Jj1e
βiprimeXijt
⎡⎢⎢⎢⎣ ⎤⎥⎥⎥⎦ (7)
e unconditional probability is the integral over β
PiT 1113946 LiT(β)f(β)dβ (8)
Due to the random parameter specification the MLmodel relaxes the restrictive assumption of independence ofirrelevant alternatives associated with the MNL model
4 Survey Design and Data
is study was conducted in Shandong Province a populousprovince located in the eastern coastal area of China egross value of agricultural production in Shandong was11942 million US dollars in 2014 including vegetableproduction of 4324 million US dollars making it the topagricultural province among the 31 provinces of MainlandChina8 e economic development within Shandong is notbalanced with remarkable differences between the easterncoastal and western inland areas is is a close reflection ofthe developmental differences between the eastern coastaland the central and western inland areas of China To thisregard Shandong is representative of China In this studythree representative cities were selected from each of theeastern (Qingdao Weihai and Rizhao) central (LaiwuZibo and Tairsquoan) and western regions (Liaocheng Dezhouand Heze) of Shandong respectively
e survey included two phases In the first phaseabout 10 participants were selected in each city using arandom sampling method to conduct focus group in-terviews e purpose was to obtain basic informationabout consumers and their knowledge of organic labels andprovide a basis for defining the attributes and their levelsFocus group discussions are a suitable way to gain un-derstanding of specific topics or product categories [41]From April to July 2015 a one-hour focus group discussionwas conducted in each of the nine cities respectively Eachdiscussion group included 8ndash10 participants (81 in total)Each participant was the family member who most fre-quently purchased food and was aged between 18 and 65Each interview consisted of two segmentse first segmentassesses participantsrsquo knowledge trust buying habitsbuying motives reasons for purchase and key attributeswith respect to organic food e second segment examinesconsumer ethnocentrism and attitudes such as attitudestowards products or brands from different sources Toimprove and finalize the survey questionnaire a pre-liminary pilot study was first carried out with 100 con-sumers selected from Rizhao Shandong province inOctober 2015 Only minor adjustments were made to thequestionnaire after the pilot testing
Journal of Food Quality 5
e second phase involves implementing the actualsurvey from October to December 2015 Participants wererecruited at random near supermarkets or shopping centersto take part in an in-person survey in each of the nine citiesAlthough supermarkets and farmersrsquo markets are the mainplaces for Chinese residents to buy vegetables organicvegetables are mainly sold in supermarkets and organic foodstores in business districts6 which was also verified by thefocus group interviews e survey was administered bytrained investigators to ensure consistency Every thirdindividual approaching our booth was intercepted as apossible respondent to ensure the randomness of the sampleA total of 907 consumers (around 100 in each city) par-ticipated in the survey with an estimated response rate of7436 among these a total of 853 respondents completedthe questionnaire e sample included 480 women(5628) which is consistent with the fact that mosthousehold food buyers in China are female [7] Surveysample demographics are shown in Table 3
5 Results
51 Chinese Consumer Ethnocentrism and Trust Scorese mean Chinese consumer ethnocentrism (ETH) scorewas 39417 with a standard deviation of 10341is result isconsistent with the conclusions of Raskovic et al and Liuet al who noted that Chinese consumers generally do notshow high ethnocentrism2930 It could be attributed to theincreasing integration of China in the world economy overthe last 30 years of reform
Based on consumer trust in the four organic labels asshown in Table 4 mean consumer trust was 475 with somedifferences found among labels Mean trust for the fourorganic labels was in descending order USORG (542)JPORG (534) ARORG (473) and CNORG (432) Furtheranalysis of mean consumer trust by dependent-sample t-testrevealed significant differences in mean consumer trustamong the four organic labels (all plt 001) Mean consumertrust in USORG and JPORG were similar and much higherthan that in ARORG and CNORG Consumers had moretrust in organic labels from developed countriesregionsis is consistent with previous research indicating thatproducts from developed countries are often more popularthan those from developing countries [42]
As seen in Table 4 differences in trust were also foundamong different certifiers Dependent-sample t-test showedsignificant differences in mean consumer trust (all plt 001)Consumers had the highest trust in USCERT followed byACACERT then ARCERT and GOVCERT and lastlyPRICERT Consumers showed lower trust in private thangovernment certification and lower trust in domestic thanforeign certifiers especially certifiers from developedcountries is coincides with the findings of Wu et al [7]
52 ML Model Estimates Effect coding was used in theanalysis Assumptions for the relevant parameter distribu-tions are as follows first the coefficients of the price (PRICE)and opt-out variables were fixed and secondly the attributelevels followed normal distribution [43] Table 5 shows theML model estimation results using NLOGIT 50 As seen inTable 5 the ML model estimates showed significantlypositive two-way interactions (and thus complementaryrelationships) between USCERT and USORG and betweenARCERTand ARORG Certification of USORG by USCERTand certification of ARORG by ARCERT both generatedpositive effects on the combined main effects of the twoattributes For foreign certifiers certification of organic la-bels from their respective countries improved Chineseconsumer preferences In addition ACACERT exhibitedsignificantly positive interactions with USORG JPORG andARORG us certification of USORG JPORG andARORG by academic institutions also generated positiveeffects on the combined main effects of the two attributesis might be because consumers assumed that the ability ofacademic institutions to provide certification services forforeign organic labels highlighted their professional com-petence thereby increasing consumer preference issupports earlier findings that showed complementary orsubstitutional relationships between different attributes offood [7 42]
53 Estimates of WTP Based on the estimates in Table 5 aswell as the characteristics of the ordinal utilities of the maineffects of an attribute WTP was calculated as follows
WTPk minus2 timesβk + βETHtimesak
times ETH + βLTRUSTtimesaktimes LTRUST + βCTRUSTtimesak
times CTRUST +1113936jβktimesj times aj
βprice1113888 1113889 (9)
where WTPk is the WTP for level k of the attribute of in-terest βk is the coefficient of the main effect of level k of thisattribute βETHtimesak
is the coefficient of the interaction betweenETH and level k of the attribute βLTRUSTtimesak
and βCTRUSTtimesak
are the coefficients of the interaction between LTRUST andCTRUST and level k of the attribute respectively βktimesj is thecoefficient of the interaction between level k of the attribute
and other attributes and βprice is the estimated price co-efficient Because effect coding was used in the analysis theWTP should be multiplied by 2 in the calculation [44] econfidence interval of WTP was estimated using the para-metric bootstrapping technique (PBT) [45] Table 6 presentsthe mean WTP estimates for different organic labels andcertifiers and the corresponding confidence intervals
6 Journal of Food Quality
Table 4 Participantsrsquo trust in different organic labels and certifiers
Label Mean Standard deviation Certifiers Mean Standard deviationUSORG 542 13547 GOVCERT 496 10357JPORG 534 11357 PRICERT 394 07586ARORG 473 09834 ACACERT 524 08674CNORG 432 07589 USCERT 568 12457mdash mdash mdash ARCERT 502 11567AVERAGEa 495 12498 AVERAGEa 486 10247aMean consumer trust in all organic labels or certifiers
Table 5 Mixed logit model result on consumersrsquo preferences for attributes of organic tomatoes
Table 3 Sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents
Variables Categories Number of respondents Percentage of sample
Gender Female 480 5628Male 373 4372
Agea18ndash45 years 404 473946ndash60 years 294 3447gt60 years 155 1814
EducationbHigh education 260 3045
Medium education 340 3986Low education 253 2970
Family income (per year)clt8015US$ 264 3132
8015ndash16030US$ 358 4247gt16030US$ 221 2621
aAccording to the China Statistical Yearbook individuals aged 18ndash45 years are classified as young 46ndash60 years are classified as middle-aged and over the ageof 60 are classified as old Respondents were classified per the same criteria in this study e age structure of respondents was consistent with that of theChinese population reported in the China Statistical Yearbook as well as with that of Shandong Province reported in the Shandong Statistical YearbookbBased on the level of education in Mainland China as well as the criteria used in the China and Shandong Statistical Yearbooks low education denotesprimary school or lower medium education denotes junior high or high school and high education denotes university or higher e education level ofrespondents was consistent with that of urban residents in Shandong Province as reported in the Shandong Statistical Yearbook and slightly higher than thatof Chinese urban residents as reported in the China Statistical Yearbook cBased on the economic development and consumer income levels in MainlandChina an annual family income of less than 8015US$ is defined as low income 8015ndash16030US$ is defined as medium income and greater than 16030US$is defined as high income As this study aimed to understand the willingness of consumers to pay for organic food participants were recruited from urbansupermarkets and business districts e income level of the participants was slightly higher than the per capita income of the Chinese and Shandongpopulations reported in the China and Shandong Statistical Yearbooks respectively
Journal of Food Quality 7
Consumer ethnocentrism and trust variables were held atthe sample average level Attribute variables entered as in-teractions were held at minus1
As shown in Table 6 there were considerable differencesin consumer WTP for different organic labels e order ofconsumer preference for the organic labels was not con-sistent with that of consumer trust shown in Table 7 Amongthe four organic labels the highest WTP was expressed forUSORG (US$ 1589) followed by ARORG (US$ 1116)JPORG (US$ 1027) and lastly by CNORG (US$ 0729) Interms of WTP for different certifiers consumers had thehighest WTP for USCERT (US$ 1768) followed by ACA-CERT (US$ 1216) ARCERT (US$ 1042) and finallyGOVCERT (US$ 0837) is is the same as the order ofmean trust in different certifiers shown in Table 4
Consumers tend to assume that the US as a developedcountry has stricter food quality management and organiccertification supervision7 erefore a much higher WTPwas expressed for USORG and USCERT is agrees with
Table 6 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay measured at the sampleaverage level of ethnocentrism and trust
Attribute level Coef SE 95 CIUSORG 1589lowastlowastlowast 0529 [0552 2626]JPORG 1027lowastlowastlowast 0374 [0294 1760]ARORG 1116lowastlowastlowast 0286 [0555 1677]CNORG 0729lowastlowastlowast 0307 [0127 1331]USCERT 1768lowastlowastlowast 0299 [1182 2354]ARCERT 1042lowastlowastlowast 0304 [0446 1638]GOVCERT 0837lowastlowastlowast 0234 [0378 1296]ACACERT 1216lowastlowastlowast 0295 [0638 1794]lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively
8 Journal of Food Quality
studies on country-of-origin effects that products (or ser-vices) from developed countries are always more popularthan those from developing countries [42] Of note a muchlower WTP was expressed for organic labels from Japan adeveloped country and was even slightly lower than theWTP for organic labels from Argentina a developingcountry By contrast the mean trust in USORG and JPORGwas similar and much higher than that in ARORG orCNORG as shown in Table 7 e deviation between trustand WTP ie relatively low WTP for JPORG might bebased on several reasons First consumers might considerthat Japan an island country with a small territory doesnot have competitive advantages in agricultural pro-duction second it might be related to consumer ethno-centrism and the complex Sino-Japanese relationshipAnother surprising finding was that a relatively high WTPwas expressed for organic labels from Argentina a countrythat is relatively similar to China in economic developmentA possible reason is that Argentina is a large agriculturalcountry with a competitive advantage in agriculturalproduction and the second largest organic farmland area inthe world It is also a large developing country like Chinawhich might generate positive country-of-origin effects onthe products (or services) of Argentina As shown in Ta-ble 6 the lowest WTP was expressed for CNORG Incontrast Alphonce and Alfnes and Lusk et al argued thatconsumers have greater loyalty to their own country anddiscriminate against other countries to some extent[46 47] e possible reasons for this inconsistency are asfollows (1) Many Chinese consumers believe that agri-cultural science and technology and management levels inChina fall far behind those of developed countries withorganic certification no exception In addition someconsumers exhibit blind faith in foreign products which isa belief primarily based on purchase experience Con-sumers can believe that products from developed countriesare of a higher quality than those made in China even whenquality is the same [7] (2)e misuse and even falsificationof organic labels has jeopardized the development of thisemerging market in China (After inspecting the authen-ticity of organic certification in 2014 the Certification andAccreditation Administration of the PRC declared a re-markable misuse rate of 58 in certification labels Ofthem 50 were due to the prolonged use of certificates286 were suspected of lacking organic codes 143 weresuspected of using counterfeit organic codes and 71 didnot use certification labels as specified Source Sohu httpmtsohucom20160621n455577833shtml) Numerouscertification fraud incidents have occurred in recent years
e ldquoChongqing Wal-Mart green porkrdquo incident in 2011and the ldquoGuizhou organic Maotairdquo incident in 2013 bothimpacted the authority of Chinese food safety certificationand reduced consumer trust in Chinese organic labelsus consumers believe that the reliability of organic labelsfrom other developing countries such as Argentina ishigher than that of China
e WTP estimates for certifiers in Table 6 showed thatconsumers were willing to pay higher premiums forGOVCERT than PRICERT Janssen and Hamm found thatconsumers in some countries have a higher WTP forgovernment-certified labels than private ones whereas theopposite is true in other countries furthermore consumersin some countries do not show significantly different WTPbetween the two labels and consumer preferences for labelscan vary with the type of organic product [5]
54 Consumer Ethnocentrism and WTP for Organic FoodTo further examine the sensitivity of consumer WTP basedon different levels of ethnocentrism using the parametricbootstrapping technique outlined in Hole we calculatedWTP measures for each type of organic label and certifierbased on different levels of ETH [45] In this calculation thelevels of trust in labels (LTRUST) and trust in certifiers(CTRUST) were held at sample average while ETH wasallowed to change from 1 to 7 taking only integer valuesTable 8 shows the result
As seen in Table 8 there were considerable differences inthe order of preference for the organic labels among the ETHlevels e greatest difference was observed in their WTP forJapanese and Chinese organic labels When the level of ETH islow the order of WTP for organic labels from differentcountries was USORGgt JPORGgtARORGgtCNORG eirWTP for USORG and JPORG was much higher than that forARORG which was in turn much higher than that forCNORG With increases in ETH the WTP for USORG andARORG decreased especially for JPORG but the WTP forCNORG increased When the level of ETH is relatively highthere is a different WTP order for organic labels from differentcountries that is USORGgtCNORGgtARORGgt JPORGey showed amuch higherWTP for CNORG and although itwas lower than the WTP for USORG it was higher than thatfor ARORG and JPORG (which had the lowestWTP) Overallwith the increase in ETH consumers showed a lower WTP forforeign organic labels especially for those from Japan and asignificantly higher WTP for organic labels from China isindicated that ETH had a considerable impact on consumerpreferences
Table 7 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay for organic labels based on different levels of trust in organic labels
Label LTRUST1 LTRUST 2 LTRUST 3 LTRUST 4 LTRUST 5 LTRUST 6 LTRUST 7USORG 1531lowastlowastlowast (0583) 1511lowastlowastlowast (0579) 1576lowastlowastlowast (0548) 1588lowastlowastlowast (0573) 1592lowastlowastlowast (0566) 1607lowastlowastlowast (0602) 1608lowastlowastlowast (0598)JPORG 0903lowastlowastlowast (0341) 0923lowastlowastlowast (0349) 0955lowastlowastlowast (0362) 1056lowastlowastlowast (0359) 1109lowastlowastlowast (0403) 1111lowastlowastlowast (0412) 1114lowastlowastlowast (0409)ARORG 1112lowastlowastlowast (0409) 1108lowastlowastlowast (0396) 1134lowastlowastlowast (0421) 1197lowastlowastlowast (0430) 1211lowastlowastlowast (0462) 1257lowastlowastlowast (0473) 1266lowastlowastlowast (0471)CNORG 0599lowastlowastlowast (0212) 0605lowastlowastlowast (0227) 0710lowastlowastlowast (0221) 0715lowastlowastlowast (0247) 0813lowastlowastlowast (0289) 0907lowastlowastlowast (0301) 0915lowastlowastlowast (0315)lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Standard errors of consumerWTPs are reported within the brackets Consumerethnocentrism and trust in certifiers are held at the sample average level
Journal of Food Quality 9
Table 8 also shows that with the increase in ETHconsumer WTP slightly increased for Chinese certifiersslightly decreased for USCERT and remained substantiallyunchanged for ARCERT Moreover the order of preferencesfor certifiers remains unchanged is indicated that thepreferences of Chinese consumers for domestic and foreigncertifiers were not affected by ethnocentrism to any greatextent Since its reformation the Chinese government hasgenerally adopted a policy of encouraging direct foreigninvestment In this context Chinese consumers have alsowelcomed direct foreign investment and view its contributionto domestic employment and economic growth positivelyHowever this speculation needs further verification
55 Trust Effects on Preferences and WTP For a similarreason WTP measured at different levels of trust for eachtype of organic label and certifier was calculated whileallowing the trust measures to change from 1 to 7 takingevery integer values in between When calculating the im-pact of trust in organic labels (LTRUST) consumer eth-nocentrism (ETH) and trust in certifiers (CTRUST) wereheld at sample average Variables ETH and LTRUST wereheld at the sample average while calculating the impact ofCTRUST e results are shown in Tables 7 and 9
Based on results in Table 7 with the increase in con-sumer trust (the respondents were grouped in five differentways per their trust in the four organic labels as well asaverage trust e WTP for each type of organic label wasthen calculated for the different groups However only theWTP of respondents grouped by average trust (AVERAGE)are discussed in this paper Based on the survey data thecorrelation coefficients between the trust scores for thedifferent organic labels were all greater than 08 indicating apositive correlation between trust scores for each type oforganic label Although consumer trust varied among theorganic labels consumers with a higher trust in a certainorganic label were more inclined to trust the other threetypes of organic labels Our calculation results also showedno significant differences in WTP among the trust groupswhen the respondents were grouped as mentioned aboveGiven space limitations the calculation results for all groupsare not presented e same is true for the grouping ofrespondents by their trust in different certifiers) the order ofpreference for the organic labels remained the sameUSORGgtARORGgt JPORGgtCNORG Similarly the orderof preference for the certifiers remained the same
USCERTgtACACERTgtARCERTgtGOVCERT Howeverwith the increase in trust consumer WTP for each type oforganic label and certifier generally increased which cor-roborates previous research on consumer WTP for organicfood12 It is worth noting that in general the difference inWTP among organic labels decreased with the increase intrust For example according to Table 7 when consumertrust in organic labels increased from 1 to 7 the differencebetween their WTP for a US label and a Chinese labeldecreased fromUS$ 0932 to $ 0693 respectively ConsumerWTP for other labels showed a similar trend
Similarly the data in Table 9 indicate that the differencesin WTP among certifiers also decreased with the increase intrust (Table 9) Due to the frequent food safety incidents andscandals in China in recent years consumers in the low trustgroups had lower levels of trust in Chinese organic labels andcertifiers but relatively higher levels of trust in foreignorganic labels and foreign-invested certifiers thus resultingin greater differences in their WTP is suggests that anincrease in consumer trust in organic certification will helpto enhance WTP especially for Chinese organic labels andcertifiers
6 Conclusions and Limitations
61 Conclusions In this paper consumer WTP for organiclabels from different sources was examined using the choiceexperiment method and mixed logit model Furthermorethe impacts of consumer ethnocentrism and trust on con-sumer preferences were analyzed e main conclusions areas follows (1) Mean consumer trust in organic labels variedwith the country of origin e highest level of trust wasfound in US organic labels followed by Japanese Argentineand Chinese organic labels Consumer trust in certifiers alsosignificantly differed with the country of origin e highestlevel of trust was found in US-invested certifiers followed byChinese academic institution-supported Argentine-invested and Chinese government-supported certifiersand lastly in Chinese private certifiers (2) Consumer WTPvaried greatly among the organic labels e highest WTPwas expressed for US organic labels followed by Argentineand Japanese organic labels and lastly Chinese organic la-bels e order of WTP was not consistent with that ofconsumer trust mainly due to the relatively low WTP forJapanese organic labels Chinese consumers not only showedstrong preference for US organic labels but also the highest
Table 8 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay based on different levels of ethnocentrism
Level ETH 1 ETH 2 ETH 3 ETH 4 ETH 5 ETH 6 ETH 7USORG 1638lowastlowastlowast 1618lowastlowastlowast 1597lowastlowastlowast 1582lowastlowastlowast 1501lowastlowastlowast 1428lowastlowastlowast 1431lowastlowastlowastJPORG 1321lowastlowastlowast 1317lowastlowastlowast 1205lowastlowastlowast 1113lowastlowastlowast 0954lowastlowastlowast 0886lowastlowastlowast 0884lowastlowastlowastARORG 1129lowastlowastlowast 1125lowastlowastlowast 1125lowastlowastlowast 1121lowastlowastlowast 1003lowastlowastlowast 0922lowastlowastlowast 0829lowastlowastlowastCNORG 0685lowastlowastlowast 0698lowastlowastlowast 0738lowastlowastlowast 0754lowastlowastlowast 0893lowastlowastlowast 1029lowastlowastlowast 1253lowastlowastlowastUSCERT 1508lowastlowastlowast 1504lowastlowastlowast 1496lowastlowastlowast 1486lowastlowastlowast 1395lowastlowastlowast 1370lowastlowastlowast 1371lowastlowastlowastARCERT 1460lowastlowastlowast 1451lowastlowastlowast 1448lowastlowastlowast 1436lowastlowastlowast 1431lowastlowastlowast 1434lowastlowastlowast 1433lowastlowastlowastGOVCERT 1080lowastlowastlowast 1085lowastlowastlowast 1107lowastlowastlowast 1115lowastlowastlowast 1311lowastlowastlowast 1308lowastlowastlowast 1319lowastlowastlowastACACERT 0891lowastlowastlowast 0882lowastlowastlowast 0921lowastlowastlowast 0936lowastlowastlowast 1086lowastlowastlowast 1165lowastlowastlowast 1172lowastlowastlowastlowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowast denote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Variables LTRUST and CTRUST are held at the sample average level
10 Journal of Food Quality
WTP for US-invested certifiers followed by Chinese aca-demic institution-supported Argentine-invested and Chi-nese government-supported certifiersis is the same as theorder of mean trust in different certifiers (3) Certification oforganic labels from their respective countries improvedChinese consumer preferences In addition academicinstitution-supported certifier exhibited significantly posi-tive interactions with foreign organic labels (4) Chineseconsumers did not show high ethnocentrism Howeverthere was a considerable discrepancy in the order of pref-erence for the organic labels among the ETH levels With theincrease in consumer ethnocentrism consumers showed asubstantially lower WTP for Japanese organic labels and asignificantly higher WTP for Chinese organic labels Con-sumer WTP for certifiers did not change significantly withthe increase in ETH with a slight increase for Chinesecertifiers slight decrease for US-invested certifiers andstability for Argentine-invested certifiers (5) e order ofpreference for different organic labels and that for variouscertifiers did not change with the increase in consumer trustHowever consumer WTP for each type of organic labelgenerally increased with the increase in trust It is worthnoting that the differences in consumerWTP among organiclabels and among certifiers decreased with the increase intrust
Overall Chinese consumers showed different WTPs fororganic labels from different sources due to consumerethnocentrism and trustese conclusions should serve as avital basis for food suppliers in their selection of certificationservices and target market positioning Moreover this re-search can not only serve as a guidance for the reformationof the certification system and development of the certifiedfood market in China but also provide information toforeign certification service providers when entering theChinese market
62Limitations is study had the following limitations (1)Our research was conducted during the period when Sino-Japanese economic and trade relations had cooled due to theDiaoyu Islands dispute and other issues is historicalbackground inevitably affected consumer attitudes towardsJapanese products or services to varying degrees usconsumer WTP for Japanese organic labels should betracked over a longer period (2) Countries-of-origins werelimited to the US Japan Argentina and ChinaeWTPs ofChinese consumers for organic labels from other countriesregions such as Canada and Brazil need to be further in-vestigated (3) Consumer trust in different organic labels and
certifiers were examined separately however trust was notexamined in regards to a specific type of organic label from aspecific type of certifier such as a US organic label issued bya Chinese government-supported certifier which should beexamined in future research
Data Availability
e data used to support the findings of this study areavailable from the corresponding author upon request
Conflicts of Interest
e authors declare that there are no conflicts of interestregarding the publication of this article
Acknowledgments
is paper was supported by the study of evaluation of socialwelfare of quality and safety certification policy for agri-cultural products in the new era in China a project of theSocial Science Foundation of China (Approval no18BJY153)
References
[1] S J Yin R Li L H Wu and X J Chen Introduction to 2018China Development Report on Food Satety Peking UniversityPress Beijing China 2018
[2] M R Darby and E Karni ldquoFree competition and the optimalamount of fraudrdquo Journal of Law and Economics vol 16 no 1pp 67ndash88 1973
[3] F Albersmeier H Schulze and A Spiller ldquoSystem dynamicsin food quality certifications development of an audit in-tegrity systemrdquo International Journal of Food System Dy-namics vol 1 no 1 pp 69ndash81 2010
[4] E Golan F Kuchler L Mitchell C Greene and A JessupldquoEconomics of food labellingrdquo Journal of Consumer Policyvol 24 no 2 pp 117ndash184 2001
[5] M Janssen and U Hamm ldquoProduct labelling in the marketfor organic food consumer preferences and willingness-to-pay for different organic certification logosrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 25 no 1 pp 9ndash22 2012
[6] S J Yin Information Asymmetry Certification Effectivenessand Consumer Preferences An Case Study of Organic FoodChina Social Sciences Press Beijing China 2013
[7] L H Wu S J Yin Y J Xu and D Zhu ldquoEffectiveness ofChinarsquos organic food certification policy consumer prefer-ences for infant milk formula with different organic certifi-cation labelsrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevue canadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 62 no 4 pp 545ndash5682014
Table 9 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay for certifiers based on different levels of trust in certifiers
Certifiers CTRUST1 CTRUST 2 CTRUST 3 CTRUST 4 CTRUST 5 CTRUST 6 CTRUST 7USCERT 1473lowastlowastlowast (0521) 1481lowastlowastlowast (0499) 1521lowastlowastlowast (0532) 1632lowastlowastlowast (0578) 1669lowastlowastlowast (0592) 1717lowastlowastlowast (0623) 1785lowastlowastlowast (0637)ARCERT 0756lowastlowastlowast (0213) 0803lowastlowastlowast (0201) 0956lowastlowastlowast (0266) 1127lowastlowastlowast (0242) 1151lowastlowastlowast (0308) 1286lowastlowastlowast (0403) 1301lowastlowastlowast (0424)GOVCERT 0974lowastlowastlowast (0359) 1006lowastlowastlowast (0362) 1128lowastlowastlowast (0412) 1315lowastlowastlowast (0437) 1346lowastlowastlowast (0464) 1385lowastlowastlowast (0502) 1402lowastlowastlowast (0521)ACACERT 0713lowastlowastlowast (0245) 0721lowastlowastlowast (0257) 0974lowastlowastlowast (0291) 1102lowastlowastlowast (0286) 1142lowastlowastlowast (0331) 1213lowastlowastlowast (0392) 1291lowastlowastlowast (0378)lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Standard errors of consumersrsquoWTPs are reported within the brackets Consumerethnocentrism and trust in organic labels are held at the sample average level
Journal of Food Quality 11
[8] National Bureau of Statistics of China National StatisticalYearbook China Statistics Press Beijing China 2015
[9] FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations) FAO Statistical Yearbooks FAO Rome Italy 2016httpwwwfaoorgfaostatendata
[10] L Probst E Houedjofonon H M Ayerakwa and R HaasldquoWill they buy it e potential for marketing organic veg-etables in the food vending sector to strengthen vegetablesafety a choice experiment study in threeWest African citiesrdquoFood Policy vol 37 no 3 pp 296ndash308 2012
[11] V Falguera N Aliguer and M Falguera ldquoAn integratedapproach to current trends in food consumption movingtoward functional and organic productsrdquo Food Controlvol 26 no 2 pp 274ndash281 2012
[12] R D Liu Z Pieniak and W Verbeke ldquoConsumersrsquo attitudesand behaviour towards safe food in China a reviewrdquo FoodControl vol 33 no 1 pp 93ndash104 2013
[13] F Soler J M Gil andM Sanchez ldquoConsumer acceptability oforganic food in Spain results from an experimental auctionmarketrdquo British Food Journal vol 104 no 8 pp 670ndash6872002
[14] R B Tranter R M Bennett L Costa et al ldquoConsumersrsquowillingness-to-pay for organic conversion-grade food evi-dence from five EU countriesrdquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 287ndash294 2009
[15] S Rousseau and L Vranken ldquoGreen market expansion byreducing information asymmetries evidence for labeled or-ganic food productsrdquo Food Policy vol 40 no 2 pp 31ndash432013
[16] F Napolitano and A Braghieri ldquoEffect of information aboutorganic production on beef liking and consumer willingnessto payrdquo Food Quality and Preference vol 21 no 2pp 207ndash212 2010
[17] C Hempel and U Hamm ldquoHow important is local food toorganic-minded consumersrdquo Appetite vol 96 no 1pp 309ndash318 2016
[18] I Olesen F Alfnes M B Roslashra and K Kolstad ldquoElicitingconsumersrsquo willingness to pay for organic and welfare-labelledsalmon in a non-hypothetical choice experimentrdquo LivestockScience vol 127 no 2-3 pp 218ndash226 2010
[19] E J Van Loo V Caputo R M Nayga J F Meullenet andS C Ricke ldquoConsumer willingness to pay for organic chickenbreast evidence from choice experimentrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 22 no 7 pp 603ndash613 2011
[20] B Roitner-Schobesberger I Darnhofer S Somsook andC R Vogl ldquoConsumer perceptions of organic foods inBangkok ailandrdquo Food Policy vol 33 no 2 pp 112ndash1212008
[21] G Vittersoslash and T Tangeland ldquoe role of consumers intransitions towards sustainable food consumption the case oforganic food in Norwayrdquo Journal of Cleaner Productionvol 92 no 1 pp 91ndash99 2015
[22] S J Yin M Chen Y S Chen Y Xu Z Zou and YiqinWangldquoConsumer trust in organic milk of different brands the roleof Chinese organic labelrdquo British Food Journal vol 118 no 7pp 1769ndash1782 2016
[23] J L Hsu and H P Nien ldquoWho are ethnocentric Examiningconsumer ethnocentrism in Chinese societiesrdquo Journal ofConsumer Behaviour vol 7 no 6 pp 436ndash447 2008
[24] G Hustvedt K A Carroll and J C Bernard ldquoConsumerethnocentricity and preferences for wool products by countryof origin and manufacturerdquo International Journal of Con-sumer Studies vol 37 no 5 pp 498ndash506 2013
[25] T A Shimp and S Sharma ldquoConsumer ethnocentrismconstruction and validation of the CETSCALErdquo Journal ofMarketing Research vol 24 no 3 pp 280ndash289 1987
[26] L Yan and H He ldquoEvaluation of international brand alli-ances brand order and consumer ethnocentrismrdquo Journal ofBusiness Research vol 66 no 1 pp 89ndash97 2013
[27] K L Granzin and J J Painter ldquoMotivational influences onldquobuy domesticrdquo purchasing marketing management impli-cations from a study of two nationsrdquo Journal of InternationalMarketing vol 9 no 2 pp 73ndash96 2001
[28] J G Klein R Ettenson and M D Morris ldquoe animositymodel of foreign product purchase an empirical test in thePeoplersquos Republic of Chinardquo Journal of Marketing vol 62no 1 pp 89ndash100 1998
[29] F Liu J Murphy J Li and X Liu ldquoEnglish and Chinese therole of consumer ethnocentrism and country of origin inChinese attitudes towards store signsrdquo Australasian Mar-keting Journal vol 14 no 2 pp 5ndash16 2007
[30] M Raskovic Z Ding V Skare ETH O Dosen and V ZabkarldquoComparing consumer innovativeness and ethnocentrism ofyoung-adult consumersrdquo Journal of Business Research vol 69no 9 pp 3682ndash3686 2016
[31] J He and C L Wang ldquoCultural identity and consumerethnocentrism impacts on preference and purchase of do-mestic versus import brands an empirical study in ChinardquoJournal of Business Research vol 68 no 6 pp 1225ndash12332015
[32] W Helga and J Lernoud $e world of organic agriculturestatistics and emerging trends 2014 httporgprintsorg251721willer-lernoud-2014-world-of-organicpdf
[33] R M Dawes and B Corrigan ldquoLinear models in decisionmakingrdquo Psychological Bulletin vol 81 no 2 pp 95ndash1061974
[34] J J Louviere D A Hensher and J D Swait Stated ChoiceMethods Analysis and Applications Cambridge UniversityPress Cambridge UK 2000
[35] G J Zhuang N Zhou and L X Zhou ldquoNational-brandconsciousness brand characteristics and consumer prefer-ence for indigenous brandsrdquo Management World vol 21pp 85ndash94 2006
[36] E Delgado-Ballester and J L Munuera-Aleman ldquoBrand trustin the context of consumer loyaltyrdquo European Journal ofMarketing vol 35 no 11-12 pp 1238ndash1258 2001
[37] R Lassoued J E Hobbs E T Micheels and D D ZhangldquoConsumer trust in chicken brands a structural equationmodelrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevuecanadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 63 no 4 pp 621ndash647 2015
[38] K J Lancaster ldquoA new approach to consumer theoryrdquoJournal of Political Economy vol 74 no 2 pp 132ndash157 1966
[39] J S James B J Rickard and W J Rossman ldquoProduct dif-ferentiation and market segmentation in applesauce using achoice experiment to assess the value of organic local andnutrition attributesrdquo Agricultural and Resource EconomicsReview vol 38 no 3 pp 357ndash370 2009
[40] D McFadden and K Train ldquoMixed MNL models for discreteresponserdquo Journal of Applied Econometrics vol 15 no 5pp 447ndash470 2000
[41] A Claret L Guerrero E Aguirre et al ldquoConsumer prefer-ences for sea fish using conjoint analysis exploratory study ofthe importance of country of origin obtaining methodstorage conditions and purchasing pricerdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 26 no 2 pp 259ndash266 2012
12 Journal of Food Quality
[42] Y Y Cai and J X He ldquoJoy and peace an empirical study onthe effect of positive emotion on the country of originrdquoJournal of Marketing Science vol 8 pp 76ndash87 2012
[43] D Ubilava and K Foster ldquoQuality certification vs producttraceability consumer preferences for informational attri-butes of pork in Georgiardquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 305ndash310 2009
[44] J L Lusk J Roosen and J A Fox ldquoDemand for beef from cattleadministered growth hormones or fed genetically modifiedcorn a comparison of consumers in France Germany theUnited Kingdom and the United Statesrdquo American Journal ofAgricultural Economics vol 85 no 1 pp 16ndash29 2003
[45] A R Hole ldquoA comparison of approaches to estimatingconfidence intervals for willingness to pay measuresrdquo HealthEconomics vol 16 no 8 pp 827ndash840 2007
[46] R Alphonce and F Alfnes ldquoConsumer willingness to pay forfood safety in Tanzania an incentive-aligned conjoint anal-ysisrdquo International Journal of Consumer Studies vol 36 no 4pp 394ndash400 2012
[47] J L Lusk J Brown T Mark I Proseku R ompson andJ Welsh ldquoConsumer behavior public policy and country-of-origin labellingrdquo Review of Agricultural Economics vol 28no 2 pp 284ndash292 2006
is considered immoral with resulting ethical conflicts[25 27 28] Historically Chinese consumer ethnocentrismhas resulted from the strong impact of foreign capital onnational capital Since the 1980s with increasing integrationof China to the world economy Chinese attitudes towardsproducts from overseas have become increasingly complexDue to numerous interacting factors there are varyingdegrees of heterogeneity in consumer ethnocentrism amongdifferent products and consumer groups NeverthelessChinese consumers generally do not show high ethnocen-trism [29 30] Some studies have examined the impact ofethnocentrism on Chinese consumer preferences forproducts or brands from different countries [23 29] He andWang reported that Chinese consumer ethnocentrism has anegative impact on relative preference for import brands butnot on actual buying of domestic or import brands [31] Liuet al found that country of origin could moderate the impactof consumer ethnocentrism on foreign brand evaluationssignificantly so for a US brand but insignificant when thecountry of origin was Australia [29] However such studieshave primarily focused on physical products such as au-tomobiles and bottled water [23 31] rather than productattributes such as certification
In the present study we investigate consumer trust inorganic labels from different countries and different types oforganic certifiers Consumer WTP for organic labels fromdifferent countries and different types of organic certifiers aswell as the interactions between them were evaluated andcompared e possible impacts of consumer trust andethnocentrism on consumer preferences were also analyzed
3 Methodology
31 Choice Experiment We examined consumer WTP fororganic labels from different countries and certifiers througha consumer survey featuring a choice experiment Fivedifferent labels were considered US organic label (USORG)Japanese organic label (JPORG) Argentine organic label(ARORG) Chinese organic label (CNORG) and no organiclabel (NOORG) e reasons for setting such attribute levelsare as follows (1) A previous empirical study and focusgroup interview showed that Chinese consumers are rela-tively familiar with USORG JPORG ARORG andCNORG6 (In the focus group interview organic labels from15 different countriesregions were presented e partici-pants were then asked to mark the labels they knew Organiclabels known by more than 30 of participants includedChinese organic labels (76) US organic labels (47) EUorganic labels (46) Japanese organic labels (42) NewZealand organic labels (41) Australian organic labels(37) Argentine organic labels (18) and Brazilian organiclabels (17) e statistical results from the formal surveywere substantially similar to the above results) (2) Both theUS and Japan are important trading partners with ChinaJapan is geographically close to China and is the only Asiancountry in the Group of Seven (G7) Although China andJapan have a long history of exchange Chinese consumershave boycotted Japanese goods due to historical and terri-torial issues28 erefore USORG and JPORG were selected
as representatives of certification services from developedcountriesregions with different types of association withChina (3) Although ARORG is not as well-known toChinese consumers it is still one of the most well-knownorganic labels from developing countriesregions MoreoverArgentina is second only to the US in land devoted to or-ganic agricultural production [32] and is a leader amongdeveloping countries ARORG was thus chosen as a rep-resentative of the developing world
Because organic labels must be approved and issued byspecific organic certifiers organic certifier was introduced asan attribute in the choice experiment to examine organiclabel and certifier interaction e reason for examining thisinteraction is that according to Dawes and Corrigan 70ndash90 of consumer utility variance is explained by the maineffects of an attribute and as much as 5ndash15 by two-wayinteractions [33] erefore considering two-way in-teractions can not only provide insights into understandingthe interaction effects between the attributes but also helpreduce errors in estimating the main effect of an attribute[34] Similar to that of most countries there are many(approximately 20) organic certifiers in China which can bedivided into four types (1) certifiers established under therelevant government departments eg the China OrganicFood Certification Center under the Chinese Ministry ofAgriculture (2) certifiers established under academic re-search institutions eg Northwest AampF University Certifierunder the Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University(3) private certifiers eg Hangzhou Wantai CertificationLimited and (4) foreign-invested certifiers approved by theCertification and Accreditation Administration of the PRCFor instance the CERES (Shanghai) Certification Co Ltd isa joint venture established in China by the CERES Certi-fication of Environmental Standards GmbH Germany Allfour types of certifiers can provide organic certificationservices in China or other countries on a cooperative orcommission basis (According to the Regulations of thePeoplersquos Republic of China on Certification and Accredi-tation foreign certifiers are not allowed to provide organiccertification services in China without preapproval)erefore the certifier attribute was set at five levels Chinesegovernment-supported (GOVCERT) Chinese private(PRICERT) Chinese academic institution-supported(ACACERT) developed country-invested and developingcountry-invested certifiers To facilitate participant selectionUS-invested certifiers (USCERT) and Argentine-investedcertifiers (ARCERT) were used to represent developedand developing country-invested certifiers respectively
For the attribute price (PRICE) high (14 $kg) medium(11 $kg) and low (08 $kg) levels were set per the actualmarket price of tomatoes in supermarkets and organic foodstores (To facilitate understanding we converted theoriginal RMB yuan currency unit into US dollars in ac-cordance with the exchange rate on November 1 2015 (1 USdollar 63171 RMB))
e final attributes and their levels which are shown inTable 1 resulted in 5 times 5 times 3 75 virtual tomato productoptions Each choice task contained two virtual tomatoproduct options as well as an opt-out option If a full
Journal of Food Quality 3
factorial design was used the participants had to completeC275 2775 choice tasks which is unrealistic erefore a
fractional factorial design (FFD) was used and the first-orderinteraction effect was considered in order to reduce thenumber of tasks while ensuring efficiency Five versionswere generated using SAS software each with 15 tasks for adesign D-efficiency of 100 (see Figure 1 for an example of achoice task)
32 Consumer Ethnocentrism and Trust in Labels from Dif-ferent Countries Consumer ethnocentrism and consumertrust in different labels or different certifiers were alsocollected in the consumer survey
321 Consumer Ethnocentrism To quantify consumerethnocentrism survey participants indicated their agree-ment with six items in the questionnaire using a Likert scalefrom 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree) e items wereselected based on consumer ethnocentrism scales and sur-veys used by previous researchers [25 35] Only one factorwas extracted after applying factor analysis of the collectedanswers Following Zhuang et al and after removing oneitem with the lowest item-total correlation a five-itemconsumer ethnocentrism scale (α 0727) was obtained[25] Table 2 lists the items and their mean scores econsumer ethnocentrism propensity score (ETH) was cal-culated for each survey participant by adding the scores ofeach item and dividing by five
322 Consumer Trust in Different Labels and CertifiersConsumer trust in organic labels from each country wasmeasured using two seven-point Likert scale (α 0733)questions as per Delgado-Ballester and Munuera-Alemanwho allowed respondents to provide a self-judgment using aseven-point Likert scale (the agreedisagree anchor points)[36] (In our survey we did not want to impose a definitionof food quality upon respondents Rather it was treated as abroad concept that could encompass many componentsincluding food safety e two questions are as follows (a) Ithink that the tomato I buy with this label can be trusted forits high quality (b) I think that the tomato I buy with thislabel has reliable quality e mean scores of the two itemsare 4962 and 4938 respectively) e index of participantsrsquo
trust in organic labels (LTRUST) was calculated by averagingthe scores of the two items
Consumer trust in each organic certifier (CTRUST) wasmeasured using the similar two-item scale (α 0723) pre-viously to investigate respondentsrsquo trust in food suppliers[37] (e two questions are as follows (a) in general I canrely on organic certifiers to supervise organic suppliers toprovide high quality tomatoes (b) in general I think thatorganic certifiers can be trusted to ensure that tomatoes areof high quality e mean scores of the two items are 4786and 4934 respectively) Participants indicated theiragreement with seven items in the questionnaire using aLikert scale from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree) eindex of participantsrsquo trust in organic certifiers (CTRUST)was calculated by averaging the scores of these two items
GOVCERT USCERT
NoneOrganiclabel
Certificationbody
08US$kgPrice 14US$kg
Figure 1 Sample choice task
Table 2 Consumer ethnocentrism scale
Item description Mean scoresChinese people should give priority to domesticproducts in their purchasing decisions to protect thenational industry
3756
I am proud of the development of the Chinesenational enterprises 4364
I am worried about the threat of foreign products toChinarsquos related industries and markets 3757
I am uneasy about the expansion of foreign brandsor products in China 3752
Chinese people should use Chinese products asmuch as possible 4080
Acceptance of Chinese products by consumers isdirectly related to the sustainable development ofnational enterprises and the Chinese economya
3851
α value 0727Explanation power of the overall scale 4876ais item was not used in the calculation of the ethnocentrism propensityscore because of its low correlation coefficient with the overall scale
Table 1 Attributes and attribute levels used in the choice ex-periment design
Attribute LevelOrganiclabel
US organic label Japanese organic label Argentineorganic label Chinese organic label no label
Certifiers
Chinese government-supported certifiers Chineseprivate certifiers Chinese academic institution-supported certifiers US-invested certifiers
33 EconometricModelling e econometric analysis of thechoice data was based on random utility theory [38] As-suming individual consumers are rational they will choosethe product (ie tomato) option with the maximum utilityUtility Uni obtained by consumer n choosing tomato option i
can be defined as follows
Uni Vni + εni
Vni Xniβ(1)
where Vni and εni are the deterministic and stochastic termsof utility respectively indicating that the true consumerutility is unobservable from the perspective of researchers Ifconsumer n maximizes hisher utility by choosing tomatooption ia in choice set C the probability of consumer n
choosing tomato option i can be defined as follows
Pni Prob Uni gtUnj j 1 J jne i1113872 1113873
Pni Prob εni minus εnj gtUnj minusUni j 1 J jne i1113872 1113873
(2)
Assuming εni(i 1 J) follows an independent andidentically distributed type I maximum extreme-value dis-tribution the probability of consumer n choosing tomatooption i can be expressed as follows [39]
Pni eXiβ
1113936Jj1e
Xiβ i 1 J (3)
is is the conditional logit model (MNL) e MNLmodel assumes that consumer preferences are homoge-neous although this can be inconsistent with the actualsituation A more realistic assumption is that consumerpreferences are heterogeneous In other words βmay not befixed but stochastic and follows a certain distributionGiven this assumption the utility obtained by consumer i
choosing option m in situation t can be defined as follows[40]
Uimt βiprimeXimt + eimt (4)
where Ximt is the vector of observable variables associatedwith the option and decision maker βi is the coefficientvector of consumer i with respect to these variables and eimt
is a stochastic term is utility function can be furtherexpressed as follows
Uimt β +Ωprimeηi( 1113857primeXimt + eimt (5)
where β is the mean of vector βi Ωprimeηi represents tasteheterogeneity and Ω is the Cholesky matrix considering thecorrelation between the random coefficients βi An appro-priate distribution assumption can be made for randomdeviation ηi e unconditional probability is the integral ofthe logit probability over the density function of βi
Pimt 1113946eβprimeXimt
1113936jeβprimeXijt
⎛⎝ ⎞⎠f(β)dβ (6)
where f(β) is the multivariate probability density functionEquation (6) is a generalized form of the MNL model
known as the mixed logit (ML)model (or random parameterlogit model) Assuming that the consumer makes a choice atT different times and that the choice sequence isI i1 iT1113864 1113865 the probability for the consumer choosing thesequence is as follows
LiT(β) 1113945T
t1
eβiprimeXiitt
1113936Jj1e
βiprimeXijt
⎡⎢⎢⎢⎣ ⎤⎥⎥⎥⎦ (7)
e unconditional probability is the integral over β
PiT 1113946 LiT(β)f(β)dβ (8)
Due to the random parameter specification the MLmodel relaxes the restrictive assumption of independence ofirrelevant alternatives associated with the MNL model
4 Survey Design and Data
is study was conducted in Shandong Province a populousprovince located in the eastern coastal area of China egross value of agricultural production in Shandong was11942 million US dollars in 2014 including vegetableproduction of 4324 million US dollars making it the topagricultural province among the 31 provinces of MainlandChina8 e economic development within Shandong is notbalanced with remarkable differences between the easterncoastal and western inland areas is is a close reflection ofthe developmental differences between the eastern coastaland the central and western inland areas of China To thisregard Shandong is representative of China In this studythree representative cities were selected from each of theeastern (Qingdao Weihai and Rizhao) central (LaiwuZibo and Tairsquoan) and western regions (Liaocheng Dezhouand Heze) of Shandong respectively
e survey included two phases In the first phaseabout 10 participants were selected in each city using arandom sampling method to conduct focus group in-terviews e purpose was to obtain basic informationabout consumers and their knowledge of organic labels andprovide a basis for defining the attributes and their levelsFocus group discussions are a suitable way to gain un-derstanding of specific topics or product categories [41]From April to July 2015 a one-hour focus group discussionwas conducted in each of the nine cities respectively Eachdiscussion group included 8ndash10 participants (81 in total)Each participant was the family member who most fre-quently purchased food and was aged between 18 and 65Each interview consisted of two segmentse first segmentassesses participantsrsquo knowledge trust buying habitsbuying motives reasons for purchase and key attributeswith respect to organic food e second segment examinesconsumer ethnocentrism and attitudes such as attitudestowards products or brands from different sources Toimprove and finalize the survey questionnaire a pre-liminary pilot study was first carried out with 100 con-sumers selected from Rizhao Shandong province inOctober 2015 Only minor adjustments were made to thequestionnaire after the pilot testing
Journal of Food Quality 5
e second phase involves implementing the actualsurvey from October to December 2015 Participants wererecruited at random near supermarkets or shopping centersto take part in an in-person survey in each of the nine citiesAlthough supermarkets and farmersrsquo markets are the mainplaces for Chinese residents to buy vegetables organicvegetables are mainly sold in supermarkets and organic foodstores in business districts6 which was also verified by thefocus group interviews e survey was administered bytrained investigators to ensure consistency Every thirdindividual approaching our booth was intercepted as apossible respondent to ensure the randomness of the sampleA total of 907 consumers (around 100 in each city) par-ticipated in the survey with an estimated response rate of7436 among these a total of 853 respondents completedthe questionnaire e sample included 480 women(5628) which is consistent with the fact that mosthousehold food buyers in China are female [7] Surveysample demographics are shown in Table 3
5 Results
51 Chinese Consumer Ethnocentrism and Trust Scorese mean Chinese consumer ethnocentrism (ETH) scorewas 39417 with a standard deviation of 10341is result isconsistent with the conclusions of Raskovic et al and Liuet al who noted that Chinese consumers generally do notshow high ethnocentrism2930 It could be attributed to theincreasing integration of China in the world economy overthe last 30 years of reform
Based on consumer trust in the four organic labels asshown in Table 4 mean consumer trust was 475 with somedifferences found among labels Mean trust for the fourorganic labels was in descending order USORG (542)JPORG (534) ARORG (473) and CNORG (432) Furtheranalysis of mean consumer trust by dependent-sample t-testrevealed significant differences in mean consumer trustamong the four organic labels (all plt 001) Mean consumertrust in USORG and JPORG were similar and much higherthan that in ARORG and CNORG Consumers had moretrust in organic labels from developed countriesregionsis is consistent with previous research indicating thatproducts from developed countries are often more popularthan those from developing countries [42]
As seen in Table 4 differences in trust were also foundamong different certifiers Dependent-sample t-test showedsignificant differences in mean consumer trust (all plt 001)Consumers had the highest trust in USCERT followed byACACERT then ARCERT and GOVCERT and lastlyPRICERT Consumers showed lower trust in private thangovernment certification and lower trust in domestic thanforeign certifiers especially certifiers from developedcountries is coincides with the findings of Wu et al [7]
52 ML Model Estimates Effect coding was used in theanalysis Assumptions for the relevant parameter distribu-tions are as follows first the coefficients of the price (PRICE)and opt-out variables were fixed and secondly the attributelevels followed normal distribution [43] Table 5 shows theML model estimation results using NLOGIT 50 As seen inTable 5 the ML model estimates showed significantlypositive two-way interactions (and thus complementaryrelationships) between USCERT and USORG and betweenARCERTand ARORG Certification of USORG by USCERTand certification of ARORG by ARCERT both generatedpositive effects on the combined main effects of the twoattributes For foreign certifiers certification of organic la-bels from their respective countries improved Chineseconsumer preferences In addition ACACERT exhibitedsignificantly positive interactions with USORG JPORG andARORG us certification of USORG JPORG andARORG by academic institutions also generated positiveeffects on the combined main effects of the two attributesis might be because consumers assumed that the ability ofacademic institutions to provide certification services forforeign organic labels highlighted their professional com-petence thereby increasing consumer preference issupports earlier findings that showed complementary orsubstitutional relationships between different attributes offood [7 42]
53 Estimates of WTP Based on the estimates in Table 5 aswell as the characteristics of the ordinal utilities of the maineffects of an attribute WTP was calculated as follows
WTPk minus2 timesβk + βETHtimesak
times ETH + βLTRUSTtimesaktimes LTRUST + βCTRUSTtimesak
times CTRUST +1113936jβktimesj times aj
βprice1113888 1113889 (9)
where WTPk is the WTP for level k of the attribute of in-terest βk is the coefficient of the main effect of level k of thisattribute βETHtimesak
is the coefficient of the interaction betweenETH and level k of the attribute βLTRUSTtimesak
and βCTRUSTtimesak
are the coefficients of the interaction between LTRUST andCTRUST and level k of the attribute respectively βktimesj is thecoefficient of the interaction between level k of the attribute
and other attributes and βprice is the estimated price co-efficient Because effect coding was used in the analysis theWTP should be multiplied by 2 in the calculation [44] econfidence interval of WTP was estimated using the para-metric bootstrapping technique (PBT) [45] Table 6 presentsthe mean WTP estimates for different organic labels andcertifiers and the corresponding confidence intervals
6 Journal of Food Quality
Table 4 Participantsrsquo trust in different organic labels and certifiers
Label Mean Standard deviation Certifiers Mean Standard deviationUSORG 542 13547 GOVCERT 496 10357JPORG 534 11357 PRICERT 394 07586ARORG 473 09834 ACACERT 524 08674CNORG 432 07589 USCERT 568 12457mdash mdash mdash ARCERT 502 11567AVERAGEa 495 12498 AVERAGEa 486 10247aMean consumer trust in all organic labels or certifiers
Table 5 Mixed logit model result on consumersrsquo preferences for attributes of organic tomatoes
Table 3 Sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents
Variables Categories Number of respondents Percentage of sample
Gender Female 480 5628Male 373 4372
Agea18ndash45 years 404 473946ndash60 years 294 3447gt60 years 155 1814
EducationbHigh education 260 3045
Medium education 340 3986Low education 253 2970
Family income (per year)clt8015US$ 264 3132
8015ndash16030US$ 358 4247gt16030US$ 221 2621
aAccording to the China Statistical Yearbook individuals aged 18ndash45 years are classified as young 46ndash60 years are classified as middle-aged and over the ageof 60 are classified as old Respondents were classified per the same criteria in this study e age structure of respondents was consistent with that of theChinese population reported in the China Statistical Yearbook as well as with that of Shandong Province reported in the Shandong Statistical YearbookbBased on the level of education in Mainland China as well as the criteria used in the China and Shandong Statistical Yearbooks low education denotesprimary school or lower medium education denotes junior high or high school and high education denotes university or higher e education level ofrespondents was consistent with that of urban residents in Shandong Province as reported in the Shandong Statistical Yearbook and slightly higher than thatof Chinese urban residents as reported in the China Statistical Yearbook cBased on the economic development and consumer income levels in MainlandChina an annual family income of less than 8015US$ is defined as low income 8015ndash16030US$ is defined as medium income and greater than 16030US$is defined as high income As this study aimed to understand the willingness of consumers to pay for organic food participants were recruited from urbansupermarkets and business districts e income level of the participants was slightly higher than the per capita income of the Chinese and Shandongpopulations reported in the China and Shandong Statistical Yearbooks respectively
Journal of Food Quality 7
Consumer ethnocentrism and trust variables were held atthe sample average level Attribute variables entered as in-teractions were held at minus1
As shown in Table 6 there were considerable differencesin consumer WTP for different organic labels e order ofconsumer preference for the organic labels was not con-sistent with that of consumer trust shown in Table 7 Amongthe four organic labels the highest WTP was expressed forUSORG (US$ 1589) followed by ARORG (US$ 1116)JPORG (US$ 1027) and lastly by CNORG (US$ 0729) Interms of WTP for different certifiers consumers had thehighest WTP for USCERT (US$ 1768) followed by ACA-CERT (US$ 1216) ARCERT (US$ 1042) and finallyGOVCERT (US$ 0837) is is the same as the order ofmean trust in different certifiers shown in Table 4
Consumers tend to assume that the US as a developedcountry has stricter food quality management and organiccertification supervision7 erefore a much higher WTPwas expressed for USORG and USCERT is agrees with
Table 6 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay measured at the sampleaverage level of ethnocentrism and trust
Attribute level Coef SE 95 CIUSORG 1589lowastlowastlowast 0529 [0552 2626]JPORG 1027lowastlowastlowast 0374 [0294 1760]ARORG 1116lowastlowastlowast 0286 [0555 1677]CNORG 0729lowastlowastlowast 0307 [0127 1331]USCERT 1768lowastlowastlowast 0299 [1182 2354]ARCERT 1042lowastlowastlowast 0304 [0446 1638]GOVCERT 0837lowastlowastlowast 0234 [0378 1296]ACACERT 1216lowastlowastlowast 0295 [0638 1794]lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively
8 Journal of Food Quality
studies on country-of-origin effects that products (or ser-vices) from developed countries are always more popularthan those from developing countries [42] Of note a muchlower WTP was expressed for organic labels from Japan adeveloped country and was even slightly lower than theWTP for organic labels from Argentina a developingcountry By contrast the mean trust in USORG and JPORGwas similar and much higher than that in ARORG orCNORG as shown in Table 7 e deviation between trustand WTP ie relatively low WTP for JPORG might bebased on several reasons First consumers might considerthat Japan an island country with a small territory doesnot have competitive advantages in agricultural pro-duction second it might be related to consumer ethno-centrism and the complex Sino-Japanese relationshipAnother surprising finding was that a relatively high WTPwas expressed for organic labels from Argentina a countrythat is relatively similar to China in economic developmentA possible reason is that Argentina is a large agriculturalcountry with a competitive advantage in agriculturalproduction and the second largest organic farmland area inthe world It is also a large developing country like Chinawhich might generate positive country-of-origin effects onthe products (or services) of Argentina As shown in Ta-ble 6 the lowest WTP was expressed for CNORG Incontrast Alphonce and Alfnes and Lusk et al argued thatconsumers have greater loyalty to their own country anddiscriminate against other countries to some extent[46 47] e possible reasons for this inconsistency are asfollows (1) Many Chinese consumers believe that agri-cultural science and technology and management levels inChina fall far behind those of developed countries withorganic certification no exception In addition someconsumers exhibit blind faith in foreign products which isa belief primarily based on purchase experience Con-sumers can believe that products from developed countriesare of a higher quality than those made in China even whenquality is the same [7] (2)e misuse and even falsificationof organic labels has jeopardized the development of thisemerging market in China (After inspecting the authen-ticity of organic certification in 2014 the Certification andAccreditation Administration of the PRC declared a re-markable misuse rate of 58 in certification labels Ofthem 50 were due to the prolonged use of certificates286 were suspected of lacking organic codes 143 weresuspected of using counterfeit organic codes and 71 didnot use certification labels as specified Source Sohu httpmtsohucom20160621n455577833shtml) Numerouscertification fraud incidents have occurred in recent years
e ldquoChongqing Wal-Mart green porkrdquo incident in 2011and the ldquoGuizhou organic Maotairdquo incident in 2013 bothimpacted the authority of Chinese food safety certificationand reduced consumer trust in Chinese organic labelsus consumers believe that the reliability of organic labelsfrom other developing countries such as Argentina ishigher than that of China
e WTP estimates for certifiers in Table 6 showed thatconsumers were willing to pay higher premiums forGOVCERT than PRICERT Janssen and Hamm found thatconsumers in some countries have a higher WTP forgovernment-certified labels than private ones whereas theopposite is true in other countries furthermore consumersin some countries do not show significantly different WTPbetween the two labels and consumer preferences for labelscan vary with the type of organic product [5]
54 Consumer Ethnocentrism and WTP for Organic FoodTo further examine the sensitivity of consumer WTP basedon different levels of ethnocentrism using the parametricbootstrapping technique outlined in Hole we calculatedWTP measures for each type of organic label and certifierbased on different levels of ETH [45] In this calculation thelevels of trust in labels (LTRUST) and trust in certifiers(CTRUST) were held at sample average while ETH wasallowed to change from 1 to 7 taking only integer valuesTable 8 shows the result
As seen in Table 8 there were considerable differences inthe order of preference for the organic labels among the ETHlevels e greatest difference was observed in their WTP forJapanese and Chinese organic labels When the level of ETH islow the order of WTP for organic labels from differentcountries was USORGgt JPORGgtARORGgtCNORG eirWTP for USORG and JPORG was much higher than that forARORG which was in turn much higher than that forCNORG With increases in ETH the WTP for USORG andARORG decreased especially for JPORG but the WTP forCNORG increased When the level of ETH is relatively highthere is a different WTP order for organic labels from differentcountries that is USORGgtCNORGgtARORGgt JPORGey showed amuch higherWTP for CNORG and although itwas lower than the WTP for USORG it was higher than thatfor ARORG and JPORG (which had the lowestWTP) Overallwith the increase in ETH consumers showed a lower WTP forforeign organic labels especially for those from Japan and asignificantly higher WTP for organic labels from China isindicated that ETH had a considerable impact on consumerpreferences
Table 7 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay for organic labels based on different levels of trust in organic labels
Label LTRUST1 LTRUST 2 LTRUST 3 LTRUST 4 LTRUST 5 LTRUST 6 LTRUST 7USORG 1531lowastlowastlowast (0583) 1511lowastlowastlowast (0579) 1576lowastlowastlowast (0548) 1588lowastlowastlowast (0573) 1592lowastlowastlowast (0566) 1607lowastlowastlowast (0602) 1608lowastlowastlowast (0598)JPORG 0903lowastlowastlowast (0341) 0923lowastlowastlowast (0349) 0955lowastlowastlowast (0362) 1056lowastlowastlowast (0359) 1109lowastlowastlowast (0403) 1111lowastlowastlowast (0412) 1114lowastlowastlowast (0409)ARORG 1112lowastlowastlowast (0409) 1108lowastlowastlowast (0396) 1134lowastlowastlowast (0421) 1197lowastlowastlowast (0430) 1211lowastlowastlowast (0462) 1257lowastlowastlowast (0473) 1266lowastlowastlowast (0471)CNORG 0599lowastlowastlowast (0212) 0605lowastlowastlowast (0227) 0710lowastlowastlowast (0221) 0715lowastlowastlowast (0247) 0813lowastlowastlowast (0289) 0907lowastlowastlowast (0301) 0915lowastlowastlowast (0315)lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Standard errors of consumerWTPs are reported within the brackets Consumerethnocentrism and trust in certifiers are held at the sample average level
Journal of Food Quality 9
Table 8 also shows that with the increase in ETHconsumer WTP slightly increased for Chinese certifiersslightly decreased for USCERT and remained substantiallyunchanged for ARCERT Moreover the order of preferencesfor certifiers remains unchanged is indicated that thepreferences of Chinese consumers for domestic and foreigncertifiers were not affected by ethnocentrism to any greatextent Since its reformation the Chinese government hasgenerally adopted a policy of encouraging direct foreigninvestment In this context Chinese consumers have alsowelcomed direct foreign investment and view its contributionto domestic employment and economic growth positivelyHowever this speculation needs further verification
55 Trust Effects on Preferences and WTP For a similarreason WTP measured at different levels of trust for eachtype of organic label and certifier was calculated whileallowing the trust measures to change from 1 to 7 takingevery integer values in between When calculating the im-pact of trust in organic labels (LTRUST) consumer eth-nocentrism (ETH) and trust in certifiers (CTRUST) wereheld at sample average Variables ETH and LTRUST wereheld at the sample average while calculating the impact ofCTRUST e results are shown in Tables 7 and 9
Based on results in Table 7 with the increase in con-sumer trust (the respondents were grouped in five differentways per their trust in the four organic labels as well asaverage trust e WTP for each type of organic label wasthen calculated for the different groups However only theWTP of respondents grouped by average trust (AVERAGE)are discussed in this paper Based on the survey data thecorrelation coefficients between the trust scores for thedifferent organic labels were all greater than 08 indicating apositive correlation between trust scores for each type oforganic label Although consumer trust varied among theorganic labels consumers with a higher trust in a certainorganic label were more inclined to trust the other threetypes of organic labels Our calculation results also showedno significant differences in WTP among the trust groupswhen the respondents were grouped as mentioned aboveGiven space limitations the calculation results for all groupsare not presented e same is true for the grouping ofrespondents by their trust in different certifiers) the order ofpreference for the organic labels remained the sameUSORGgtARORGgt JPORGgtCNORG Similarly the orderof preference for the certifiers remained the same
USCERTgtACACERTgtARCERTgtGOVCERT Howeverwith the increase in trust consumer WTP for each type oforganic label and certifier generally increased which cor-roborates previous research on consumer WTP for organicfood12 It is worth noting that in general the difference inWTP among organic labels decreased with the increase intrust For example according to Table 7 when consumertrust in organic labels increased from 1 to 7 the differencebetween their WTP for a US label and a Chinese labeldecreased fromUS$ 0932 to $ 0693 respectively ConsumerWTP for other labels showed a similar trend
Similarly the data in Table 9 indicate that the differencesin WTP among certifiers also decreased with the increase intrust (Table 9) Due to the frequent food safety incidents andscandals in China in recent years consumers in the low trustgroups had lower levels of trust in Chinese organic labels andcertifiers but relatively higher levels of trust in foreignorganic labels and foreign-invested certifiers thus resultingin greater differences in their WTP is suggests that anincrease in consumer trust in organic certification will helpto enhance WTP especially for Chinese organic labels andcertifiers
6 Conclusions and Limitations
61 Conclusions In this paper consumer WTP for organiclabels from different sources was examined using the choiceexperiment method and mixed logit model Furthermorethe impacts of consumer ethnocentrism and trust on con-sumer preferences were analyzed e main conclusions areas follows (1) Mean consumer trust in organic labels variedwith the country of origin e highest level of trust wasfound in US organic labels followed by Japanese Argentineand Chinese organic labels Consumer trust in certifiers alsosignificantly differed with the country of origin e highestlevel of trust was found in US-invested certifiers followed byChinese academic institution-supported Argentine-invested and Chinese government-supported certifiersand lastly in Chinese private certifiers (2) Consumer WTPvaried greatly among the organic labels e highest WTPwas expressed for US organic labels followed by Argentineand Japanese organic labels and lastly Chinese organic la-bels e order of WTP was not consistent with that ofconsumer trust mainly due to the relatively low WTP forJapanese organic labels Chinese consumers not only showedstrong preference for US organic labels but also the highest
Table 8 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay based on different levels of ethnocentrism
Level ETH 1 ETH 2 ETH 3 ETH 4 ETH 5 ETH 6 ETH 7USORG 1638lowastlowastlowast 1618lowastlowastlowast 1597lowastlowastlowast 1582lowastlowastlowast 1501lowastlowastlowast 1428lowastlowastlowast 1431lowastlowastlowastJPORG 1321lowastlowastlowast 1317lowastlowastlowast 1205lowastlowastlowast 1113lowastlowastlowast 0954lowastlowastlowast 0886lowastlowastlowast 0884lowastlowastlowastARORG 1129lowastlowastlowast 1125lowastlowastlowast 1125lowastlowastlowast 1121lowastlowastlowast 1003lowastlowastlowast 0922lowastlowastlowast 0829lowastlowastlowastCNORG 0685lowastlowastlowast 0698lowastlowastlowast 0738lowastlowastlowast 0754lowastlowastlowast 0893lowastlowastlowast 1029lowastlowastlowast 1253lowastlowastlowastUSCERT 1508lowastlowastlowast 1504lowastlowastlowast 1496lowastlowastlowast 1486lowastlowastlowast 1395lowastlowastlowast 1370lowastlowastlowast 1371lowastlowastlowastARCERT 1460lowastlowastlowast 1451lowastlowastlowast 1448lowastlowastlowast 1436lowastlowastlowast 1431lowastlowastlowast 1434lowastlowastlowast 1433lowastlowastlowastGOVCERT 1080lowastlowastlowast 1085lowastlowastlowast 1107lowastlowastlowast 1115lowastlowastlowast 1311lowastlowastlowast 1308lowastlowastlowast 1319lowastlowastlowastACACERT 0891lowastlowastlowast 0882lowastlowastlowast 0921lowastlowastlowast 0936lowastlowastlowast 1086lowastlowastlowast 1165lowastlowastlowast 1172lowastlowastlowastlowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowast denote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Variables LTRUST and CTRUST are held at the sample average level
10 Journal of Food Quality
WTP for US-invested certifiers followed by Chinese aca-demic institution-supported Argentine-invested and Chi-nese government-supported certifiersis is the same as theorder of mean trust in different certifiers (3) Certification oforganic labels from their respective countries improvedChinese consumer preferences In addition academicinstitution-supported certifier exhibited significantly posi-tive interactions with foreign organic labels (4) Chineseconsumers did not show high ethnocentrism Howeverthere was a considerable discrepancy in the order of pref-erence for the organic labels among the ETH levels With theincrease in consumer ethnocentrism consumers showed asubstantially lower WTP for Japanese organic labels and asignificantly higher WTP for Chinese organic labels Con-sumer WTP for certifiers did not change significantly withthe increase in ETH with a slight increase for Chinesecertifiers slight decrease for US-invested certifiers andstability for Argentine-invested certifiers (5) e order ofpreference for different organic labels and that for variouscertifiers did not change with the increase in consumer trustHowever consumer WTP for each type of organic labelgenerally increased with the increase in trust It is worthnoting that the differences in consumerWTP among organiclabels and among certifiers decreased with the increase intrust
Overall Chinese consumers showed different WTPs fororganic labels from different sources due to consumerethnocentrism and trustese conclusions should serve as avital basis for food suppliers in their selection of certificationservices and target market positioning Moreover this re-search can not only serve as a guidance for the reformationof the certification system and development of the certifiedfood market in China but also provide information toforeign certification service providers when entering theChinese market
62Limitations is study had the following limitations (1)Our research was conducted during the period when Sino-Japanese economic and trade relations had cooled due to theDiaoyu Islands dispute and other issues is historicalbackground inevitably affected consumer attitudes towardsJapanese products or services to varying degrees usconsumer WTP for Japanese organic labels should betracked over a longer period (2) Countries-of-origins werelimited to the US Japan Argentina and ChinaeWTPs ofChinese consumers for organic labels from other countriesregions such as Canada and Brazil need to be further in-vestigated (3) Consumer trust in different organic labels and
certifiers were examined separately however trust was notexamined in regards to a specific type of organic label from aspecific type of certifier such as a US organic label issued bya Chinese government-supported certifier which should beexamined in future research
Data Availability
e data used to support the findings of this study areavailable from the corresponding author upon request
Conflicts of Interest
e authors declare that there are no conflicts of interestregarding the publication of this article
Acknowledgments
is paper was supported by the study of evaluation of socialwelfare of quality and safety certification policy for agri-cultural products in the new era in China a project of theSocial Science Foundation of China (Approval no18BJY153)
References
[1] S J Yin R Li L H Wu and X J Chen Introduction to 2018China Development Report on Food Satety Peking UniversityPress Beijing China 2018
[2] M R Darby and E Karni ldquoFree competition and the optimalamount of fraudrdquo Journal of Law and Economics vol 16 no 1pp 67ndash88 1973
[3] F Albersmeier H Schulze and A Spiller ldquoSystem dynamicsin food quality certifications development of an audit in-tegrity systemrdquo International Journal of Food System Dy-namics vol 1 no 1 pp 69ndash81 2010
[4] E Golan F Kuchler L Mitchell C Greene and A JessupldquoEconomics of food labellingrdquo Journal of Consumer Policyvol 24 no 2 pp 117ndash184 2001
[5] M Janssen and U Hamm ldquoProduct labelling in the marketfor organic food consumer preferences and willingness-to-pay for different organic certification logosrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 25 no 1 pp 9ndash22 2012
[6] S J Yin Information Asymmetry Certification Effectivenessand Consumer Preferences An Case Study of Organic FoodChina Social Sciences Press Beijing China 2013
[7] L H Wu S J Yin Y J Xu and D Zhu ldquoEffectiveness ofChinarsquos organic food certification policy consumer prefer-ences for infant milk formula with different organic certifi-cation labelsrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevue canadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 62 no 4 pp 545ndash5682014
Table 9 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay for certifiers based on different levels of trust in certifiers
Certifiers CTRUST1 CTRUST 2 CTRUST 3 CTRUST 4 CTRUST 5 CTRUST 6 CTRUST 7USCERT 1473lowastlowastlowast (0521) 1481lowastlowastlowast (0499) 1521lowastlowastlowast (0532) 1632lowastlowastlowast (0578) 1669lowastlowastlowast (0592) 1717lowastlowastlowast (0623) 1785lowastlowastlowast (0637)ARCERT 0756lowastlowastlowast (0213) 0803lowastlowastlowast (0201) 0956lowastlowastlowast (0266) 1127lowastlowastlowast (0242) 1151lowastlowastlowast (0308) 1286lowastlowastlowast (0403) 1301lowastlowastlowast (0424)GOVCERT 0974lowastlowastlowast (0359) 1006lowastlowastlowast (0362) 1128lowastlowastlowast (0412) 1315lowastlowastlowast (0437) 1346lowastlowastlowast (0464) 1385lowastlowastlowast (0502) 1402lowastlowastlowast (0521)ACACERT 0713lowastlowastlowast (0245) 0721lowastlowastlowast (0257) 0974lowastlowastlowast (0291) 1102lowastlowastlowast (0286) 1142lowastlowastlowast (0331) 1213lowastlowastlowast (0392) 1291lowastlowastlowast (0378)lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Standard errors of consumersrsquoWTPs are reported within the brackets Consumerethnocentrism and trust in organic labels are held at the sample average level
Journal of Food Quality 11
[8] National Bureau of Statistics of China National StatisticalYearbook China Statistics Press Beijing China 2015
[9] FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations) FAO Statistical Yearbooks FAO Rome Italy 2016httpwwwfaoorgfaostatendata
[10] L Probst E Houedjofonon H M Ayerakwa and R HaasldquoWill they buy it e potential for marketing organic veg-etables in the food vending sector to strengthen vegetablesafety a choice experiment study in threeWest African citiesrdquoFood Policy vol 37 no 3 pp 296ndash308 2012
[11] V Falguera N Aliguer and M Falguera ldquoAn integratedapproach to current trends in food consumption movingtoward functional and organic productsrdquo Food Controlvol 26 no 2 pp 274ndash281 2012
[12] R D Liu Z Pieniak and W Verbeke ldquoConsumersrsquo attitudesand behaviour towards safe food in China a reviewrdquo FoodControl vol 33 no 1 pp 93ndash104 2013
[13] F Soler J M Gil andM Sanchez ldquoConsumer acceptability oforganic food in Spain results from an experimental auctionmarketrdquo British Food Journal vol 104 no 8 pp 670ndash6872002
[14] R B Tranter R M Bennett L Costa et al ldquoConsumersrsquowillingness-to-pay for organic conversion-grade food evi-dence from five EU countriesrdquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 287ndash294 2009
[15] S Rousseau and L Vranken ldquoGreen market expansion byreducing information asymmetries evidence for labeled or-ganic food productsrdquo Food Policy vol 40 no 2 pp 31ndash432013
[16] F Napolitano and A Braghieri ldquoEffect of information aboutorganic production on beef liking and consumer willingnessto payrdquo Food Quality and Preference vol 21 no 2pp 207ndash212 2010
[17] C Hempel and U Hamm ldquoHow important is local food toorganic-minded consumersrdquo Appetite vol 96 no 1pp 309ndash318 2016
[18] I Olesen F Alfnes M B Roslashra and K Kolstad ldquoElicitingconsumersrsquo willingness to pay for organic and welfare-labelledsalmon in a non-hypothetical choice experimentrdquo LivestockScience vol 127 no 2-3 pp 218ndash226 2010
[19] E J Van Loo V Caputo R M Nayga J F Meullenet andS C Ricke ldquoConsumer willingness to pay for organic chickenbreast evidence from choice experimentrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 22 no 7 pp 603ndash613 2011
[20] B Roitner-Schobesberger I Darnhofer S Somsook andC R Vogl ldquoConsumer perceptions of organic foods inBangkok ailandrdquo Food Policy vol 33 no 2 pp 112ndash1212008
[21] G Vittersoslash and T Tangeland ldquoe role of consumers intransitions towards sustainable food consumption the case oforganic food in Norwayrdquo Journal of Cleaner Productionvol 92 no 1 pp 91ndash99 2015
[22] S J Yin M Chen Y S Chen Y Xu Z Zou and YiqinWangldquoConsumer trust in organic milk of different brands the roleof Chinese organic labelrdquo British Food Journal vol 118 no 7pp 1769ndash1782 2016
[23] J L Hsu and H P Nien ldquoWho are ethnocentric Examiningconsumer ethnocentrism in Chinese societiesrdquo Journal ofConsumer Behaviour vol 7 no 6 pp 436ndash447 2008
[24] G Hustvedt K A Carroll and J C Bernard ldquoConsumerethnocentricity and preferences for wool products by countryof origin and manufacturerdquo International Journal of Con-sumer Studies vol 37 no 5 pp 498ndash506 2013
[25] T A Shimp and S Sharma ldquoConsumer ethnocentrismconstruction and validation of the CETSCALErdquo Journal ofMarketing Research vol 24 no 3 pp 280ndash289 1987
[26] L Yan and H He ldquoEvaluation of international brand alli-ances brand order and consumer ethnocentrismrdquo Journal ofBusiness Research vol 66 no 1 pp 89ndash97 2013
[27] K L Granzin and J J Painter ldquoMotivational influences onldquobuy domesticrdquo purchasing marketing management impli-cations from a study of two nationsrdquo Journal of InternationalMarketing vol 9 no 2 pp 73ndash96 2001
[28] J G Klein R Ettenson and M D Morris ldquoe animositymodel of foreign product purchase an empirical test in thePeoplersquos Republic of Chinardquo Journal of Marketing vol 62no 1 pp 89ndash100 1998
[29] F Liu J Murphy J Li and X Liu ldquoEnglish and Chinese therole of consumer ethnocentrism and country of origin inChinese attitudes towards store signsrdquo Australasian Mar-keting Journal vol 14 no 2 pp 5ndash16 2007
[30] M Raskovic Z Ding V Skare ETH O Dosen and V ZabkarldquoComparing consumer innovativeness and ethnocentrism ofyoung-adult consumersrdquo Journal of Business Research vol 69no 9 pp 3682ndash3686 2016
[31] J He and C L Wang ldquoCultural identity and consumerethnocentrism impacts on preference and purchase of do-mestic versus import brands an empirical study in ChinardquoJournal of Business Research vol 68 no 6 pp 1225ndash12332015
[32] W Helga and J Lernoud $e world of organic agriculturestatistics and emerging trends 2014 httporgprintsorg251721willer-lernoud-2014-world-of-organicpdf
[33] R M Dawes and B Corrigan ldquoLinear models in decisionmakingrdquo Psychological Bulletin vol 81 no 2 pp 95ndash1061974
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[35] G J Zhuang N Zhou and L X Zhou ldquoNational-brandconsciousness brand characteristics and consumer prefer-ence for indigenous brandsrdquo Management World vol 21pp 85ndash94 2006
[36] E Delgado-Ballester and J L Munuera-Aleman ldquoBrand trustin the context of consumer loyaltyrdquo European Journal ofMarketing vol 35 no 11-12 pp 1238ndash1258 2001
[37] R Lassoued J E Hobbs E T Micheels and D D ZhangldquoConsumer trust in chicken brands a structural equationmodelrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevuecanadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 63 no 4 pp 621ndash647 2015
[38] K J Lancaster ldquoA new approach to consumer theoryrdquoJournal of Political Economy vol 74 no 2 pp 132ndash157 1966
[39] J S James B J Rickard and W J Rossman ldquoProduct dif-ferentiation and market segmentation in applesauce using achoice experiment to assess the value of organic local andnutrition attributesrdquo Agricultural and Resource EconomicsReview vol 38 no 3 pp 357ndash370 2009
[40] D McFadden and K Train ldquoMixed MNL models for discreteresponserdquo Journal of Applied Econometrics vol 15 no 5pp 447ndash470 2000
[41] A Claret L Guerrero E Aguirre et al ldquoConsumer prefer-ences for sea fish using conjoint analysis exploratory study ofthe importance of country of origin obtaining methodstorage conditions and purchasing pricerdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 26 no 2 pp 259ndash266 2012
12 Journal of Food Quality
[42] Y Y Cai and J X He ldquoJoy and peace an empirical study onthe effect of positive emotion on the country of originrdquoJournal of Marketing Science vol 8 pp 76ndash87 2012
[43] D Ubilava and K Foster ldquoQuality certification vs producttraceability consumer preferences for informational attri-butes of pork in Georgiardquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 305ndash310 2009
[44] J L Lusk J Roosen and J A Fox ldquoDemand for beef from cattleadministered growth hormones or fed genetically modifiedcorn a comparison of consumers in France Germany theUnited Kingdom and the United Statesrdquo American Journal ofAgricultural Economics vol 85 no 1 pp 16ndash29 2003
[45] A R Hole ldquoA comparison of approaches to estimatingconfidence intervals for willingness to pay measuresrdquo HealthEconomics vol 16 no 8 pp 827ndash840 2007
[46] R Alphonce and F Alfnes ldquoConsumer willingness to pay forfood safety in Tanzania an incentive-aligned conjoint anal-ysisrdquo International Journal of Consumer Studies vol 36 no 4pp 394ndash400 2012
[47] J L Lusk J Brown T Mark I Proseku R ompson andJ Welsh ldquoConsumer behavior public policy and country-of-origin labellingrdquo Review of Agricultural Economics vol 28no 2 pp 284ndash292 2006
factorial design was used the participants had to completeC275 2775 choice tasks which is unrealistic erefore a
fractional factorial design (FFD) was used and the first-orderinteraction effect was considered in order to reduce thenumber of tasks while ensuring efficiency Five versionswere generated using SAS software each with 15 tasks for adesign D-efficiency of 100 (see Figure 1 for an example of achoice task)
32 Consumer Ethnocentrism and Trust in Labels from Dif-ferent Countries Consumer ethnocentrism and consumertrust in different labels or different certifiers were alsocollected in the consumer survey
321 Consumer Ethnocentrism To quantify consumerethnocentrism survey participants indicated their agree-ment with six items in the questionnaire using a Likert scalefrom 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree) e items wereselected based on consumer ethnocentrism scales and sur-veys used by previous researchers [25 35] Only one factorwas extracted after applying factor analysis of the collectedanswers Following Zhuang et al and after removing oneitem with the lowest item-total correlation a five-itemconsumer ethnocentrism scale (α 0727) was obtained[25] Table 2 lists the items and their mean scores econsumer ethnocentrism propensity score (ETH) was cal-culated for each survey participant by adding the scores ofeach item and dividing by five
322 Consumer Trust in Different Labels and CertifiersConsumer trust in organic labels from each country wasmeasured using two seven-point Likert scale (α 0733)questions as per Delgado-Ballester and Munuera-Alemanwho allowed respondents to provide a self-judgment using aseven-point Likert scale (the agreedisagree anchor points)[36] (In our survey we did not want to impose a definitionof food quality upon respondents Rather it was treated as abroad concept that could encompass many componentsincluding food safety e two questions are as follows (a) Ithink that the tomato I buy with this label can be trusted forits high quality (b) I think that the tomato I buy with thislabel has reliable quality e mean scores of the two itemsare 4962 and 4938 respectively) e index of participantsrsquo
trust in organic labels (LTRUST) was calculated by averagingthe scores of the two items
Consumer trust in each organic certifier (CTRUST) wasmeasured using the similar two-item scale (α 0723) pre-viously to investigate respondentsrsquo trust in food suppliers[37] (e two questions are as follows (a) in general I canrely on organic certifiers to supervise organic suppliers toprovide high quality tomatoes (b) in general I think thatorganic certifiers can be trusted to ensure that tomatoes areof high quality e mean scores of the two items are 4786and 4934 respectively) Participants indicated theiragreement with seven items in the questionnaire using aLikert scale from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree) eindex of participantsrsquo trust in organic certifiers (CTRUST)was calculated by averaging the scores of these two items
GOVCERT USCERT
NoneOrganiclabel
Certificationbody
08US$kgPrice 14US$kg
Figure 1 Sample choice task
Table 2 Consumer ethnocentrism scale
Item description Mean scoresChinese people should give priority to domesticproducts in their purchasing decisions to protect thenational industry
3756
I am proud of the development of the Chinesenational enterprises 4364
I am worried about the threat of foreign products toChinarsquos related industries and markets 3757
I am uneasy about the expansion of foreign brandsor products in China 3752
Chinese people should use Chinese products asmuch as possible 4080
Acceptance of Chinese products by consumers isdirectly related to the sustainable development ofnational enterprises and the Chinese economya
3851
α value 0727Explanation power of the overall scale 4876ais item was not used in the calculation of the ethnocentrism propensityscore because of its low correlation coefficient with the overall scale
Table 1 Attributes and attribute levels used in the choice ex-periment design
Attribute LevelOrganiclabel
US organic label Japanese organic label Argentineorganic label Chinese organic label no label
Certifiers
Chinese government-supported certifiers Chineseprivate certifiers Chinese academic institution-supported certifiers US-invested certifiers
33 EconometricModelling e econometric analysis of thechoice data was based on random utility theory [38] As-suming individual consumers are rational they will choosethe product (ie tomato) option with the maximum utilityUtility Uni obtained by consumer n choosing tomato option i
can be defined as follows
Uni Vni + εni
Vni Xniβ(1)
where Vni and εni are the deterministic and stochastic termsof utility respectively indicating that the true consumerutility is unobservable from the perspective of researchers Ifconsumer n maximizes hisher utility by choosing tomatooption ia in choice set C the probability of consumer n
choosing tomato option i can be defined as follows
Pni Prob Uni gtUnj j 1 J jne i1113872 1113873
Pni Prob εni minus εnj gtUnj minusUni j 1 J jne i1113872 1113873
(2)
Assuming εni(i 1 J) follows an independent andidentically distributed type I maximum extreme-value dis-tribution the probability of consumer n choosing tomatooption i can be expressed as follows [39]
Pni eXiβ
1113936Jj1e
Xiβ i 1 J (3)
is is the conditional logit model (MNL) e MNLmodel assumes that consumer preferences are homoge-neous although this can be inconsistent with the actualsituation A more realistic assumption is that consumerpreferences are heterogeneous In other words βmay not befixed but stochastic and follows a certain distributionGiven this assumption the utility obtained by consumer i
choosing option m in situation t can be defined as follows[40]
Uimt βiprimeXimt + eimt (4)
where Ximt is the vector of observable variables associatedwith the option and decision maker βi is the coefficientvector of consumer i with respect to these variables and eimt
is a stochastic term is utility function can be furtherexpressed as follows
Uimt β +Ωprimeηi( 1113857primeXimt + eimt (5)
where β is the mean of vector βi Ωprimeηi represents tasteheterogeneity and Ω is the Cholesky matrix considering thecorrelation between the random coefficients βi An appro-priate distribution assumption can be made for randomdeviation ηi e unconditional probability is the integral ofthe logit probability over the density function of βi
Pimt 1113946eβprimeXimt
1113936jeβprimeXijt
⎛⎝ ⎞⎠f(β)dβ (6)
where f(β) is the multivariate probability density functionEquation (6) is a generalized form of the MNL model
known as the mixed logit (ML)model (or random parameterlogit model) Assuming that the consumer makes a choice atT different times and that the choice sequence isI i1 iT1113864 1113865 the probability for the consumer choosing thesequence is as follows
LiT(β) 1113945T
t1
eβiprimeXiitt
1113936Jj1e
βiprimeXijt
⎡⎢⎢⎢⎣ ⎤⎥⎥⎥⎦ (7)
e unconditional probability is the integral over β
PiT 1113946 LiT(β)f(β)dβ (8)
Due to the random parameter specification the MLmodel relaxes the restrictive assumption of independence ofirrelevant alternatives associated with the MNL model
4 Survey Design and Data
is study was conducted in Shandong Province a populousprovince located in the eastern coastal area of China egross value of agricultural production in Shandong was11942 million US dollars in 2014 including vegetableproduction of 4324 million US dollars making it the topagricultural province among the 31 provinces of MainlandChina8 e economic development within Shandong is notbalanced with remarkable differences between the easterncoastal and western inland areas is is a close reflection ofthe developmental differences between the eastern coastaland the central and western inland areas of China To thisregard Shandong is representative of China In this studythree representative cities were selected from each of theeastern (Qingdao Weihai and Rizhao) central (LaiwuZibo and Tairsquoan) and western regions (Liaocheng Dezhouand Heze) of Shandong respectively
e survey included two phases In the first phaseabout 10 participants were selected in each city using arandom sampling method to conduct focus group in-terviews e purpose was to obtain basic informationabout consumers and their knowledge of organic labels andprovide a basis for defining the attributes and their levelsFocus group discussions are a suitable way to gain un-derstanding of specific topics or product categories [41]From April to July 2015 a one-hour focus group discussionwas conducted in each of the nine cities respectively Eachdiscussion group included 8ndash10 participants (81 in total)Each participant was the family member who most fre-quently purchased food and was aged between 18 and 65Each interview consisted of two segmentse first segmentassesses participantsrsquo knowledge trust buying habitsbuying motives reasons for purchase and key attributeswith respect to organic food e second segment examinesconsumer ethnocentrism and attitudes such as attitudestowards products or brands from different sources Toimprove and finalize the survey questionnaire a pre-liminary pilot study was first carried out with 100 con-sumers selected from Rizhao Shandong province inOctober 2015 Only minor adjustments were made to thequestionnaire after the pilot testing
Journal of Food Quality 5
e second phase involves implementing the actualsurvey from October to December 2015 Participants wererecruited at random near supermarkets or shopping centersto take part in an in-person survey in each of the nine citiesAlthough supermarkets and farmersrsquo markets are the mainplaces for Chinese residents to buy vegetables organicvegetables are mainly sold in supermarkets and organic foodstores in business districts6 which was also verified by thefocus group interviews e survey was administered bytrained investigators to ensure consistency Every thirdindividual approaching our booth was intercepted as apossible respondent to ensure the randomness of the sampleA total of 907 consumers (around 100 in each city) par-ticipated in the survey with an estimated response rate of7436 among these a total of 853 respondents completedthe questionnaire e sample included 480 women(5628) which is consistent with the fact that mosthousehold food buyers in China are female [7] Surveysample demographics are shown in Table 3
5 Results
51 Chinese Consumer Ethnocentrism and Trust Scorese mean Chinese consumer ethnocentrism (ETH) scorewas 39417 with a standard deviation of 10341is result isconsistent with the conclusions of Raskovic et al and Liuet al who noted that Chinese consumers generally do notshow high ethnocentrism2930 It could be attributed to theincreasing integration of China in the world economy overthe last 30 years of reform
Based on consumer trust in the four organic labels asshown in Table 4 mean consumer trust was 475 with somedifferences found among labels Mean trust for the fourorganic labels was in descending order USORG (542)JPORG (534) ARORG (473) and CNORG (432) Furtheranalysis of mean consumer trust by dependent-sample t-testrevealed significant differences in mean consumer trustamong the four organic labels (all plt 001) Mean consumertrust in USORG and JPORG were similar and much higherthan that in ARORG and CNORG Consumers had moretrust in organic labels from developed countriesregionsis is consistent with previous research indicating thatproducts from developed countries are often more popularthan those from developing countries [42]
As seen in Table 4 differences in trust were also foundamong different certifiers Dependent-sample t-test showedsignificant differences in mean consumer trust (all plt 001)Consumers had the highest trust in USCERT followed byACACERT then ARCERT and GOVCERT and lastlyPRICERT Consumers showed lower trust in private thangovernment certification and lower trust in domestic thanforeign certifiers especially certifiers from developedcountries is coincides with the findings of Wu et al [7]
52 ML Model Estimates Effect coding was used in theanalysis Assumptions for the relevant parameter distribu-tions are as follows first the coefficients of the price (PRICE)and opt-out variables were fixed and secondly the attributelevels followed normal distribution [43] Table 5 shows theML model estimation results using NLOGIT 50 As seen inTable 5 the ML model estimates showed significantlypositive two-way interactions (and thus complementaryrelationships) between USCERT and USORG and betweenARCERTand ARORG Certification of USORG by USCERTand certification of ARORG by ARCERT both generatedpositive effects on the combined main effects of the twoattributes For foreign certifiers certification of organic la-bels from their respective countries improved Chineseconsumer preferences In addition ACACERT exhibitedsignificantly positive interactions with USORG JPORG andARORG us certification of USORG JPORG andARORG by academic institutions also generated positiveeffects on the combined main effects of the two attributesis might be because consumers assumed that the ability ofacademic institutions to provide certification services forforeign organic labels highlighted their professional com-petence thereby increasing consumer preference issupports earlier findings that showed complementary orsubstitutional relationships between different attributes offood [7 42]
53 Estimates of WTP Based on the estimates in Table 5 aswell as the characteristics of the ordinal utilities of the maineffects of an attribute WTP was calculated as follows
WTPk minus2 timesβk + βETHtimesak
times ETH + βLTRUSTtimesaktimes LTRUST + βCTRUSTtimesak
times CTRUST +1113936jβktimesj times aj
βprice1113888 1113889 (9)
where WTPk is the WTP for level k of the attribute of in-terest βk is the coefficient of the main effect of level k of thisattribute βETHtimesak
is the coefficient of the interaction betweenETH and level k of the attribute βLTRUSTtimesak
and βCTRUSTtimesak
are the coefficients of the interaction between LTRUST andCTRUST and level k of the attribute respectively βktimesj is thecoefficient of the interaction between level k of the attribute
and other attributes and βprice is the estimated price co-efficient Because effect coding was used in the analysis theWTP should be multiplied by 2 in the calculation [44] econfidence interval of WTP was estimated using the para-metric bootstrapping technique (PBT) [45] Table 6 presentsthe mean WTP estimates for different organic labels andcertifiers and the corresponding confidence intervals
6 Journal of Food Quality
Table 4 Participantsrsquo trust in different organic labels and certifiers
Label Mean Standard deviation Certifiers Mean Standard deviationUSORG 542 13547 GOVCERT 496 10357JPORG 534 11357 PRICERT 394 07586ARORG 473 09834 ACACERT 524 08674CNORG 432 07589 USCERT 568 12457mdash mdash mdash ARCERT 502 11567AVERAGEa 495 12498 AVERAGEa 486 10247aMean consumer trust in all organic labels or certifiers
Table 5 Mixed logit model result on consumersrsquo preferences for attributes of organic tomatoes
Table 3 Sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents
Variables Categories Number of respondents Percentage of sample
Gender Female 480 5628Male 373 4372
Agea18ndash45 years 404 473946ndash60 years 294 3447gt60 years 155 1814
EducationbHigh education 260 3045
Medium education 340 3986Low education 253 2970
Family income (per year)clt8015US$ 264 3132
8015ndash16030US$ 358 4247gt16030US$ 221 2621
aAccording to the China Statistical Yearbook individuals aged 18ndash45 years are classified as young 46ndash60 years are classified as middle-aged and over the ageof 60 are classified as old Respondents were classified per the same criteria in this study e age structure of respondents was consistent with that of theChinese population reported in the China Statistical Yearbook as well as with that of Shandong Province reported in the Shandong Statistical YearbookbBased on the level of education in Mainland China as well as the criteria used in the China and Shandong Statistical Yearbooks low education denotesprimary school or lower medium education denotes junior high or high school and high education denotes university or higher e education level ofrespondents was consistent with that of urban residents in Shandong Province as reported in the Shandong Statistical Yearbook and slightly higher than thatof Chinese urban residents as reported in the China Statistical Yearbook cBased on the economic development and consumer income levels in MainlandChina an annual family income of less than 8015US$ is defined as low income 8015ndash16030US$ is defined as medium income and greater than 16030US$is defined as high income As this study aimed to understand the willingness of consumers to pay for organic food participants were recruited from urbansupermarkets and business districts e income level of the participants was slightly higher than the per capita income of the Chinese and Shandongpopulations reported in the China and Shandong Statistical Yearbooks respectively
Journal of Food Quality 7
Consumer ethnocentrism and trust variables were held atthe sample average level Attribute variables entered as in-teractions were held at minus1
As shown in Table 6 there were considerable differencesin consumer WTP for different organic labels e order ofconsumer preference for the organic labels was not con-sistent with that of consumer trust shown in Table 7 Amongthe four organic labels the highest WTP was expressed forUSORG (US$ 1589) followed by ARORG (US$ 1116)JPORG (US$ 1027) and lastly by CNORG (US$ 0729) Interms of WTP for different certifiers consumers had thehighest WTP for USCERT (US$ 1768) followed by ACA-CERT (US$ 1216) ARCERT (US$ 1042) and finallyGOVCERT (US$ 0837) is is the same as the order ofmean trust in different certifiers shown in Table 4
Consumers tend to assume that the US as a developedcountry has stricter food quality management and organiccertification supervision7 erefore a much higher WTPwas expressed for USORG and USCERT is agrees with
Table 6 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay measured at the sampleaverage level of ethnocentrism and trust
Attribute level Coef SE 95 CIUSORG 1589lowastlowastlowast 0529 [0552 2626]JPORG 1027lowastlowastlowast 0374 [0294 1760]ARORG 1116lowastlowastlowast 0286 [0555 1677]CNORG 0729lowastlowastlowast 0307 [0127 1331]USCERT 1768lowastlowastlowast 0299 [1182 2354]ARCERT 1042lowastlowastlowast 0304 [0446 1638]GOVCERT 0837lowastlowastlowast 0234 [0378 1296]ACACERT 1216lowastlowastlowast 0295 [0638 1794]lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively
8 Journal of Food Quality
studies on country-of-origin effects that products (or ser-vices) from developed countries are always more popularthan those from developing countries [42] Of note a muchlower WTP was expressed for organic labels from Japan adeveloped country and was even slightly lower than theWTP for organic labels from Argentina a developingcountry By contrast the mean trust in USORG and JPORGwas similar and much higher than that in ARORG orCNORG as shown in Table 7 e deviation between trustand WTP ie relatively low WTP for JPORG might bebased on several reasons First consumers might considerthat Japan an island country with a small territory doesnot have competitive advantages in agricultural pro-duction second it might be related to consumer ethno-centrism and the complex Sino-Japanese relationshipAnother surprising finding was that a relatively high WTPwas expressed for organic labels from Argentina a countrythat is relatively similar to China in economic developmentA possible reason is that Argentina is a large agriculturalcountry with a competitive advantage in agriculturalproduction and the second largest organic farmland area inthe world It is also a large developing country like Chinawhich might generate positive country-of-origin effects onthe products (or services) of Argentina As shown in Ta-ble 6 the lowest WTP was expressed for CNORG Incontrast Alphonce and Alfnes and Lusk et al argued thatconsumers have greater loyalty to their own country anddiscriminate against other countries to some extent[46 47] e possible reasons for this inconsistency are asfollows (1) Many Chinese consumers believe that agri-cultural science and technology and management levels inChina fall far behind those of developed countries withorganic certification no exception In addition someconsumers exhibit blind faith in foreign products which isa belief primarily based on purchase experience Con-sumers can believe that products from developed countriesare of a higher quality than those made in China even whenquality is the same [7] (2)e misuse and even falsificationof organic labels has jeopardized the development of thisemerging market in China (After inspecting the authen-ticity of organic certification in 2014 the Certification andAccreditation Administration of the PRC declared a re-markable misuse rate of 58 in certification labels Ofthem 50 were due to the prolonged use of certificates286 were suspected of lacking organic codes 143 weresuspected of using counterfeit organic codes and 71 didnot use certification labels as specified Source Sohu httpmtsohucom20160621n455577833shtml) Numerouscertification fraud incidents have occurred in recent years
e ldquoChongqing Wal-Mart green porkrdquo incident in 2011and the ldquoGuizhou organic Maotairdquo incident in 2013 bothimpacted the authority of Chinese food safety certificationand reduced consumer trust in Chinese organic labelsus consumers believe that the reliability of organic labelsfrom other developing countries such as Argentina ishigher than that of China
e WTP estimates for certifiers in Table 6 showed thatconsumers were willing to pay higher premiums forGOVCERT than PRICERT Janssen and Hamm found thatconsumers in some countries have a higher WTP forgovernment-certified labels than private ones whereas theopposite is true in other countries furthermore consumersin some countries do not show significantly different WTPbetween the two labels and consumer preferences for labelscan vary with the type of organic product [5]
54 Consumer Ethnocentrism and WTP for Organic FoodTo further examine the sensitivity of consumer WTP basedon different levels of ethnocentrism using the parametricbootstrapping technique outlined in Hole we calculatedWTP measures for each type of organic label and certifierbased on different levels of ETH [45] In this calculation thelevels of trust in labels (LTRUST) and trust in certifiers(CTRUST) were held at sample average while ETH wasallowed to change from 1 to 7 taking only integer valuesTable 8 shows the result
As seen in Table 8 there were considerable differences inthe order of preference for the organic labels among the ETHlevels e greatest difference was observed in their WTP forJapanese and Chinese organic labels When the level of ETH islow the order of WTP for organic labels from differentcountries was USORGgt JPORGgtARORGgtCNORG eirWTP for USORG and JPORG was much higher than that forARORG which was in turn much higher than that forCNORG With increases in ETH the WTP for USORG andARORG decreased especially for JPORG but the WTP forCNORG increased When the level of ETH is relatively highthere is a different WTP order for organic labels from differentcountries that is USORGgtCNORGgtARORGgt JPORGey showed amuch higherWTP for CNORG and although itwas lower than the WTP for USORG it was higher than thatfor ARORG and JPORG (which had the lowestWTP) Overallwith the increase in ETH consumers showed a lower WTP forforeign organic labels especially for those from Japan and asignificantly higher WTP for organic labels from China isindicated that ETH had a considerable impact on consumerpreferences
Table 7 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay for organic labels based on different levels of trust in organic labels
Label LTRUST1 LTRUST 2 LTRUST 3 LTRUST 4 LTRUST 5 LTRUST 6 LTRUST 7USORG 1531lowastlowastlowast (0583) 1511lowastlowastlowast (0579) 1576lowastlowastlowast (0548) 1588lowastlowastlowast (0573) 1592lowastlowastlowast (0566) 1607lowastlowastlowast (0602) 1608lowastlowastlowast (0598)JPORG 0903lowastlowastlowast (0341) 0923lowastlowastlowast (0349) 0955lowastlowastlowast (0362) 1056lowastlowastlowast (0359) 1109lowastlowastlowast (0403) 1111lowastlowastlowast (0412) 1114lowastlowastlowast (0409)ARORG 1112lowastlowastlowast (0409) 1108lowastlowastlowast (0396) 1134lowastlowastlowast (0421) 1197lowastlowastlowast (0430) 1211lowastlowastlowast (0462) 1257lowastlowastlowast (0473) 1266lowastlowastlowast (0471)CNORG 0599lowastlowastlowast (0212) 0605lowastlowastlowast (0227) 0710lowastlowastlowast (0221) 0715lowastlowastlowast (0247) 0813lowastlowastlowast (0289) 0907lowastlowastlowast (0301) 0915lowastlowastlowast (0315)lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Standard errors of consumerWTPs are reported within the brackets Consumerethnocentrism and trust in certifiers are held at the sample average level
Journal of Food Quality 9
Table 8 also shows that with the increase in ETHconsumer WTP slightly increased for Chinese certifiersslightly decreased for USCERT and remained substantiallyunchanged for ARCERT Moreover the order of preferencesfor certifiers remains unchanged is indicated that thepreferences of Chinese consumers for domestic and foreigncertifiers were not affected by ethnocentrism to any greatextent Since its reformation the Chinese government hasgenerally adopted a policy of encouraging direct foreigninvestment In this context Chinese consumers have alsowelcomed direct foreign investment and view its contributionto domestic employment and economic growth positivelyHowever this speculation needs further verification
55 Trust Effects on Preferences and WTP For a similarreason WTP measured at different levels of trust for eachtype of organic label and certifier was calculated whileallowing the trust measures to change from 1 to 7 takingevery integer values in between When calculating the im-pact of trust in organic labels (LTRUST) consumer eth-nocentrism (ETH) and trust in certifiers (CTRUST) wereheld at sample average Variables ETH and LTRUST wereheld at the sample average while calculating the impact ofCTRUST e results are shown in Tables 7 and 9
Based on results in Table 7 with the increase in con-sumer trust (the respondents were grouped in five differentways per their trust in the four organic labels as well asaverage trust e WTP for each type of organic label wasthen calculated for the different groups However only theWTP of respondents grouped by average trust (AVERAGE)are discussed in this paper Based on the survey data thecorrelation coefficients between the trust scores for thedifferent organic labels were all greater than 08 indicating apositive correlation between trust scores for each type oforganic label Although consumer trust varied among theorganic labels consumers with a higher trust in a certainorganic label were more inclined to trust the other threetypes of organic labels Our calculation results also showedno significant differences in WTP among the trust groupswhen the respondents were grouped as mentioned aboveGiven space limitations the calculation results for all groupsare not presented e same is true for the grouping ofrespondents by their trust in different certifiers) the order ofpreference for the organic labels remained the sameUSORGgtARORGgt JPORGgtCNORG Similarly the orderof preference for the certifiers remained the same
USCERTgtACACERTgtARCERTgtGOVCERT Howeverwith the increase in trust consumer WTP for each type oforganic label and certifier generally increased which cor-roborates previous research on consumer WTP for organicfood12 It is worth noting that in general the difference inWTP among organic labels decreased with the increase intrust For example according to Table 7 when consumertrust in organic labels increased from 1 to 7 the differencebetween their WTP for a US label and a Chinese labeldecreased fromUS$ 0932 to $ 0693 respectively ConsumerWTP for other labels showed a similar trend
Similarly the data in Table 9 indicate that the differencesin WTP among certifiers also decreased with the increase intrust (Table 9) Due to the frequent food safety incidents andscandals in China in recent years consumers in the low trustgroups had lower levels of trust in Chinese organic labels andcertifiers but relatively higher levels of trust in foreignorganic labels and foreign-invested certifiers thus resultingin greater differences in their WTP is suggests that anincrease in consumer trust in organic certification will helpto enhance WTP especially for Chinese organic labels andcertifiers
6 Conclusions and Limitations
61 Conclusions In this paper consumer WTP for organiclabels from different sources was examined using the choiceexperiment method and mixed logit model Furthermorethe impacts of consumer ethnocentrism and trust on con-sumer preferences were analyzed e main conclusions areas follows (1) Mean consumer trust in organic labels variedwith the country of origin e highest level of trust wasfound in US organic labels followed by Japanese Argentineand Chinese organic labels Consumer trust in certifiers alsosignificantly differed with the country of origin e highestlevel of trust was found in US-invested certifiers followed byChinese academic institution-supported Argentine-invested and Chinese government-supported certifiersand lastly in Chinese private certifiers (2) Consumer WTPvaried greatly among the organic labels e highest WTPwas expressed for US organic labels followed by Argentineand Japanese organic labels and lastly Chinese organic la-bels e order of WTP was not consistent with that ofconsumer trust mainly due to the relatively low WTP forJapanese organic labels Chinese consumers not only showedstrong preference for US organic labels but also the highest
Table 8 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay based on different levels of ethnocentrism
Level ETH 1 ETH 2 ETH 3 ETH 4 ETH 5 ETH 6 ETH 7USORG 1638lowastlowastlowast 1618lowastlowastlowast 1597lowastlowastlowast 1582lowastlowastlowast 1501lowastlowastlowast 1428lowastlowastlowast 1431lowastlowastlowastJPORG 1321lowastlowastlowast 1317lowastlowastlowast 1205lowastlowastlowast 1113lowastlowastlowast 0954lowastlowastlowast 0886lowastlowastlowast 0884lowastlowastlowastARORG 1129lowastlowastlowast 1125lowastlowastlowast 1125lowastlowastlowast 1121lowastlowastlowast 1003lowastlowastlowast 0922lowastlowastlowast 0829lowastlowastlowastCNORG 0685lowastlowastlowast 0698lowastlowastlowast 0738lowastlowastlowast 0754lowastlowastlowast 0893lowastlowastlowast 1029lowastlowastlowast 1253lowastlowastlowastUSCERT 1508lowastlowastlowast 1504lowastlowastlowast 1496lowastlowastlowast 1486lowastlowastlowast 1395lowastlowastlowast 1370lowastlowastlowast 1371lowastlowastlowastARCERT 1460lowastlowastlowast 1451lowastlowastlowast 1448lowastlowastlowast 1436lowastlowastlowast 1431lowastlowastlowast 1434lowastlowastlowast 1433lowastlowastlowastGOVCERT 1080lowastlowastlowast 1085lowastlowastlowast 1107lowastlowastlowast 1115lowastlowastlowast 1311lowastlowastlowast 1308lowastlowastlowast 1319lowastlowastlowastACACERT 0891lowastlowastlowast 0882lowastlowastlowast 0921lowastlowastlowast 0936lowastlowastlowast 1086lowastlowastlowast 1165lowastlowastlowast 1172lowastlowastlowastlowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowast denote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Variables LTRUST and CTRUST are held at the sample average level
10 Journal of Food Quality
WTP for US-invested certifiers followed by Chinese aca-demic institution-supported Argentine-invested and Chi-nese government-supported certifiersis is the same as theorder of mean trust in different certifiers (3) Certification oforganic labels from their respective countries improvedChinese consumer preferences In addition academicinstitution-supported certifier exhibited significantly posi-tive interactions with foreign organic labels (4) Chineseconsumers did not show high ethnocentrism Howeverthere was a considerable discrepancy in the order of pref-erence for the organic labels among the ETH levels With theincrease in consumer ethnocentrism consumers showed asubstantially lower WTP for Japanese organic labels and asignificantly higher WTP for Chinese organic labels Con-sumer WTP for certifiers did not change significantly withthe increase in ETH with a slight increase for Chinesecertifiers slight decrease for US-invested certifiers andstability for Argentine-invested certifiers (5) e order ofpreference for different organic labels and that for variouscertifiers did not change with the increase in consumer trustHowever consumer WTP for each type of organic labelgenerally increased with the increase in trust It is worthnoting that the differences in consumerWTP among organiclabels and among certifiers decreased with the increase intrust
Overall Chinese consumers showed different WTPs fororganic labels from different sources due to consumerethnocentrism and trustese conclusions should serve as avital basis for food suppliers in their selection of certificationservices and target market positioning Moreover this re-search can not only serve as a guidance for the reformationof the certification system and development of the certifiedfood market in China but also provide information toforeign certification service providers when entering theChinese market
62Limitations is study had the following limitations (1)Our research was conducted during the period when Sino-Japanese economic and trade relations had cooled due to theDiaoyu Islands dispute and other issues is historicalbackground inevitably affected consumer attitudes towardsJapanese products or services to varying degrees usconsumer WTP for Japanese organic labels should betracked over a longer period (2) Countries-of-origins werelimited to the US Japan Argentina and ChinaeWTPs ofChinese consumers for organic labels from other countriesregions such as Canada and Brazil need to be further in-vestigated (3) Consumer trust in different organic labels and
certifiers were examined separately however trust was notexamined in regards to a specific type of organic label from aspecific type of certifier such as a US organic label issued bya Chinese government-supported certifier which should beexamined in future research
Data Availability
e data used to support the findings of this study areavailable from the corresponding author upon request
Conflicts of Interest
e authors declare that there are no conflicts of interestregarding the publication of this article
Acknowledgments
is paper was supported by the study of evaluation of socialwelfare of quality and safety certification policy for agri-cultural products in the new era in China a project of theSocial Science Foundation of China (Approval no18BJY153)
References
[1] S J Yin R Li L H Wu and X J Chen Introduction to 2018China Development Report on Food Satety Peking UniversityPress Beijing China 2018
[2] M R Darby and E Karni ldquoFree competition and the optimalamount of fraudrdquo Journal of Law and Economics vol 16 no 1pp 67ndash88 1973
[3] F Albersmeier H Schulze and A Spiller ldquoSystem dynamicsin food quality certifications development of an audit in-tegrity systemrdquo International Journal of Food System Dy-namics vol 1 no 1 pp 69ndash81 2010
[4] E Golan F Kuchler L Mitchell C Greene and A JessupldquoEconomics of food labellingrdquo Journal of Consumer Policyvol 24 no 2 pp 117ndash184 2001
[5] M Janssen and U Hamm ldquoProduct labelling in the marketfor organic food consumer preferences and willingness-to-pay for different organic certification logosrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 25 no 1 pp 9ndash22 2012
[6] S J Yin Information Asymmetry Certification Effectivenessand Consumer Preferences An Case Study of Organic FoodChina Social Sciences Press Beijing China 2013
[7] L H Wu S J Yin Y J Xu and D Zhu ldquoEffectiveness ofChinarsquos organic food certification policy consumer prefer-ences for infant milk formula with different organic certifi-cation labelsrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevue canadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 62 no 4 pp 545ndash5682014
Table 9 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay for certifiers based on different levels of trust in certifiers
Certifiers CTRUST1 CTRUST 2 CTRUST 3 CTRUST 4 CTRUST 5 CTRUST 6 CTRUST 7USCERT 1473lowastlowastlowast (0521) 1481lowastlowastlowast (0499) 1521lowastlowastlowast (0532) 1632lowastlowastlowast (0578) 1669lowastlowastlowast (0592) 1717lowastlowastlowast (0623) 1785lowastlowastlowast (0637)ARCERT 0756lowastlowastlowast (0213) 0803lowastlowastlowast (0201) 0956lowastlowastlowast (0266) 1127lowastlowastlowast (0242) 1151lowastlowastlowast (0308) 1286lowastlowastlowast (0403) 1301lowastlowastlowast (0424)GOVCERT 0974lowastlowastlowast (0359) 1006lowastlowastlowast (0362) 1128lowastlowastlowast (0412) 1315lowastlowastlowast (0437) 1346lowastlowastlowast (0464) 1385lowastlowastlowast (0502) 1402lowastlowastlowast (0521)ACACERT 0713lowastlowastlowast (0245) 0721lowastlowastlowast (0257) 0974lowastlowastlowast (0291) 1102lowastlowastlowast (0286) 1142lowastlowastlowast (0331) 1213lowastlowastlowast (0392) 1291lowastlowastlowast (0378)lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Standard errors of consumersrsquoWTPs are reported within the brackets Consumerethnocentrism and trust in organic labels are held at the sample average level
Journal of Food Quality 11
[8] National Bureau of Statistics of China National StatisticalYearbook China Statistics Press Beijing China 2015
[9] FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations) FAO Statistical Yearbooks FAO Rome Italy 2016httpwwwfaoorgfaostatendata
[10] L Probst E Houedjofonon H M Ayerakwa and R HaasldquoWill they buy it e potential for marketing organic veg-etables in the food vending sector to strengthen vegetablesafety a choice experiment study in threeWest African citiesrdquoFood Policy vol 37 no 3 pp 296ndash308 2012
[11] V Falguera N Aliguer and M Falguera ldquoAn integratedapproach to current trends in food consumption movingtoward functional and organic productsrdquo Food Controlvol 26 no 2 pp 274ndash281 2012
[12] R D Liu Z Pieniak and W Verbeke ldquoConsumersrsquo attitudesand behaviour towards safe food in China a reviewrdquo FoodControl vol 33 no 1 pp 93ndash104 2013
[13] F Soler J M Gil andM Sanchez ldquoConsumer acceptability oforganic food in Spain results from an experimental auctionmarketrdquo British Food Journal vol 104 no 8 pp 670ndash6872002
[14] R B Tranter R M Bennett L Costa et al ldquoConsumersrsquowillingness-to-pay for organic conversion-grade food evi-dence from five EU countriesrdquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 287ndash294 2009
[15] S Rousseau and L Vranken ldquoGreen market expansion byreducing information asymmetries evidence for labeled or-ganic food productsrdquo Food Policy vol 40 no 2 pp 31ndash432013
[16] F Napolitano and A Braghieri ldquoEffect of information aboutorganic production on beef liking and consumer willingnessto payrdquo Food Quality and Preference vol 21 no 2pp 207ndash212 2010
[17] C Hempel and U Hamm ldquoHow important is local food toorganic-minded consumersrdquo Appetite vol 96 no 1pp 309ndash318 2016
[18] I Olesen F Alfnes M B Roslashra and K Kolstad ldquoElicitingconsumersrsquo willingness to pay for organic and welfare-labelledsalmon in a non-hypothetical choice experimentrdquo LivestockScience vol 127 no 2-3 pp 218ndash226 2010
[19] E J Van Loo V Caputo R M Nayga J F Meullenet andS C Ricke ldquoConsumer willingness to pay for organic chickenbreast evidence from choice experimentrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 22 no 7 pp 603ndash613 2011
[20] B Roitner-Schobesberger I Darnhofer S Somsook andC R Vogl ldquoConsumer perceptions of organic foods inBangkok ailandrdquo Food Policy vol 33 no 2 pp 112ndash1212008
[21] G Vittersoslash and T Tangeland ldquoe role of consumers intransitions towards sustainable food consumption the case oforganic food in Norwayrdquo Journal of Cleaner Productionvol 92 no 1 pp 91ndash99 2015
[22] S J Yin M Chen Y S Chen Y Xu Z Zou and YiqinWangldquoConsumer trust in organic milk of different brands the roleof Chinese organic labelrdquo British Food Journal vol 118 no 7pp 1769ndash1782 2016
[23] J L Hsu and H P Nien ldquoWho are ethnocentric Examiningconsumer ethnocentrism in Chinese societiesrdquo Journal ofConsumer Behaviour vol 7 no 6 pp 436ndash447 2008
[24] G Hustvedt K A Carroll and J C Bernard ldquoConsumerethnocentricity and preferences for wool products by countryof origin and manufacturerdquo International Journal of Con-sumer Studies vol 37 no 5 pp 498ndash506 2013
[25] T A Shimp and S Sharma ldquoConsumer ethnocentrismconstruction and validation of the CETSCALErdquo Journal ofMarketing Research vol 24 no 3 pp 280ndash289 1987
[26] L Yan and H He ldquoEvaluation of international brand alli-ances brand order and consumer ethnocentrismrdquo Journal ofBusiness Research vol 66 no 1 pp 89ndash97 2013
[27] K L Granzin and J J Painter ldquoMotivational influences onldquobuy domesticrdquo purchasing marketing management impli-cations from a study of two nationsrdquo Journal of InternationalMarketing vol 9 no 2 pp 73ndash96 2001
[28] J G Klein R Ettenson and M D Morris ldquoe animositymodel of foreign product purchase an empirical test in thePeoplersquos Republic of Chinardquo Journal of Marketing vol 62no 1 pp 89ndash100 1998
[29] F Liu J Murphy J Li and X Liu ldquoEnglish and Chinese therole of consumer ethnocentrism and country of origin inChinese attitudes towards store signsrdquo Australasian Mar-keting Journal vol 14 no 2 pp 5ndash16 2007
[30] M Raskovic Z Ding V Skare ETH O Dosen and V ZabkarldquoComparing consumer innovativeness and ethnocentrism ofyoung-adult consumersrdquo Journal of Business Research vol 69no 9 pp 3682ndash3686 2016
[31] J He and C L Wang ldquoCultural identity and consumerethnocentrism impacts on preference and purchase of do-mestic versus import brands an empirical study in ChinardquoJournal of Business Research vol 68 no 6 pp 1225ndash12332015
[32] W Helga and J Lernoud $e world of organic agriculturestatistics and emerging trends 2014 httporgprintsorg251721willer-lernoud-2014-world-of-organicpdf
[33] R M Dawes and B Corrigan ldquoLinear models in decisionmakingrdquo Psychological Bulletin vol 81 no 2 pp 95ndash1061974
[34] J J Louviere D A Hensher and J D Swait Stated ChoiceMethods Analysis and Applications Cambridge UniversityPress Cambridge UK 2000
[35] G J Zhuang N Zhou and L X Zhou ldquoNational-brandconsciousness brand characteristics and consumer prefer-ence for indigenous brandsrdquo Management World vol 21pp 85ndash94 2006
[36] E Delgado-Ballester and J L Munuera-Aleman ldquoBrand trustin the context of consumer loyaltyrdquo European Journal ofMarketing vol 35 no 11-12 pp 1238ndash1258 2001
[37] R Lassoued J E Hobbs E T Micheels and D D ZhangldquoConsumer trust in chicken brands a structural equationmodelrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevuecanadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 63 no 4 pp 621ndash647 2015
[38] K J Lancaster ldquoA new approach to consumer theoryrdquoJournal of Political Economy vol 74 no 2 pp 132ndash157 1966
[39] J S James B J Rickard and W J Rossman ldquoProduct dif-ferentiation and market segmentation in applesauce using achoice experiment to assess the value of organic local andnutrition attributesrdquo Agricultural and Resource EconomicsReview vol 38 no 3 pp 357ndash370 2009
[40] D McFadden and K Train ldquoMixed MNL models for discreteresponserdquo Journal of Applied Econometrics vol 15 no 5pp 447ndash470 2000
[41] A Claret L Guerrero E Aguirre et al ldquoConsumer prefer-ences for sea fish using conjoint analysis exploratory study ofthe importance of country of origin obtaining methodstorage conditions and purchasing pricerdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 26 no 2 pp 259ndash266 2012
12 Journal of Food Quality
[42] Y Y Cai and J X He ldquoJoy and peace an empirical study onthe effect of positive emotion on the country of originrdquoJournal of Marketing Science vol 8 pp 76ndash87 2012
[43] D Ubilava and K Foster ldquoQuality certification vs producttraceability consumer preferences for informational attri-butes of pork in Georgiardquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 305ndash310 2009
[44] J L Lusk J Roosen and J A Fox ldquoDemand for beef from cattleadministered growth hormones or fed genetically modifiedcorn a comparison of consumers in France Germany theUnited Kingdom and the United Statesrdquo American Journal ofAgricultural Economics vol 85 no 1 pp 16ndash29 2003
[45] A R Hole ldquoA comparison of approaches to estimatingconfidence intervals for willingness to pay measuresrdquo HealthEconomics vol 16 no 8 pp 827ndash840 2007
[46] R Alphonce and F Alfnes ldquoConsumer willingness to pay forfood safety in Tanzania an incentive-aligned conjoint anal-ysisrdquo International Journal of Consumer Studies vol 36 no 4pp 394ndash400 2012
[47] J L Lusk J Brown T Mark I Proseku R ompson andJ Welsh ldquoConsumer behavior public policy and country-of-origin labellingrdquo Review of Agricultural Economics vol 28no 2 pp 284ndash292 2006
33 EconometricModelling e econometric analysis of thechoice data was based on random utility theory [38] As-suming individual consumers are rational they will choosethe product (ie tomato) option with the maximum utilityUtility Uni obtained by consumer n choosing tomato option i
can be defined as follows
Uni Vni + εni
Vni Xniβ(1)
where Vni and εni are the deterministic and stochastic termsof utility respectively indicating that the true consumerutility is unobservable from the perspective of researchers Ifconsumer n maximizes hisher utility by choosing tomatooption ia in choice set C the probability of consumer n
choosing tomato option i can be defined as follows
Pni Prob Uni gtUnj j 1 J jne i1113872 1113873
Pni Prob εni minus εnj gtUnj minusUni j 1 J jne i1113872 1113873
(2)
Assuming εni(i 1 J) follows an independent andidentically distributed type I maximum extreme-value dis-tribution the probability of consumer n choosing tomatooption i can be expressed as follows [39]
Pni eXiβ
1113936Jj1e
Xiβ i 1 J (3)
is is the conditional logit model (MNL) e MNLmodel assumes that consumer preferences are homoge-neous although this can be inconsistent with the actualsituation A more realistic assumption is that consumerpreferences are heterogeneous In other words βmay not befixed but stochastic and follows a certain distributionGiven this assumption the utility obtained by consumer i
choosing option m in situation t can be defined as follows[40]
Uimt βiprimeXimt + eimt (4)
where Ximt is the vector of observable variables associatedwith the option and decision maker βi is the coefficientvector of consumer i with respect to these variables and eimt
is a stochastic term is utility function can be furtherexpressed as follows
Uimt β +Ωprimeηi( 1113857primeXimt + eimt (5)
where β is the mean of vector βi Ωprimeηi represents tasteheterogeneity and Ω is the Cholesky matrix considering thecorrelation between the random coefficients βi An appro-priate distribution assumption can be made for randomdeviation ηi e unconditional probability is the integral ofthe logit probability over the density function of βi
Pimt 1113946eβprimeXimt
1113936jeβprimeXijt
⎛⎝ ⎞⎠f(β)dβ (6)
where f(β) is the multivariate probability density functionEquation (6) is a generalized form of the MNL model
known as the mixed logit (ML)model (or random parameterlogit model) Assuming that the consumer makes a choice atT different times and that the choice sequence isI i1 iT1113864 1113865 the probability for the consumer choosing thesequence is as follows
LiT(β) 1113945T
t1
eβiprimeXiitt
1113936Jj1e
βiprimeXijt
⎡⎢⎢⎢⎣ ⎤⎥⎥⎥⎦ (7)
e unconditional probability is the integral over β
PiT 1113946 LiT(β)f(β)dβ (8)
Due to the random parameter specification the MLmodel relaxes the restrictive assumption of independence ofirrelevant alternatives associated with the MNL model
4 Survey Design and Data
is study was conducted in Shandong Province a populousprovince located in the eastern coastal area of China egross value of agricultural production in Shandong was11942 million US dollars in 2014 including vegetableproduction of 4324 million US dollars making it the topagricultural province among the 31 provinces of MainlandChina8 e economic development within Shandong is notbalanced with remarkable differences between the easterncoastal and western inland areas is is a close reflection ofthe developmental differences between the eastern coastaland the central and western inland areas of China To thisregard Shandong is representative of China In this studythree representative cities were selected from each of theeastern (Qingdao Weihai and Rizhao) central (LaiwuZibo and Tairsquoan) and western regions (Liaocheng Dezhouand Heze) of Shandong respectively
e survey included two phases In the first phaseabout 10 participants were selected in each city using arandom sampling method to conduct focus group in-terviews e purpose was to obtain basic informationabout consumers and their knowledge of organic labels andprovide a basis for defining the attributes and their levelsFocus group discussions are a suitable way to gain un-derstanding of specific topics or product categories [41]From April to July 2015 a one-hour focus group discussionwas conducted in each of the nine cities respectively Eachdiscussion group included 8ndash10 participants (81 in total)Each participant was the family member who most fre-quently purchased food and was aged between 18 and 65Each interview consisted of two segmentse first segmentassesses participantsrsquo knowledge trust buying habitsbuying motives reasons for purchase and key attributeswith respect to organic food e second segment examinesconsumer ethnocentrism and attitudes such as attitudestowards products or brands from different sources Toimprove and finalize the survey questionnaire a pre-liminary pilot study was first carried out with 100 con-sumers selected from Rizhao Shandong province inOctober 2015 Only minor adjustments were made to thequestionnaire after the pilot testing
Journal of Food Quality 5
e second phase involves implementing the actualsurvey from October to December 2015 Participants wererecruited at random near supermarkets or shopping centersto take part in an in-person survey in each of the nine citiesAlthough supermarkets and farmersrsquo markets are the mainplaces for Chinese residents to buy vegetables organicvegetables are mainly sold in supermarkets and organic foodstores in business districts6 which was also verified by thefocus group interviews e survey was administered bytrained investigators to ensure consistency Every thirdindividual approaching our booth was intercepted as apossible respondent to ensure the randomness of the sampleA total of 907 consumers (around 100 in each city) par-ticipated in the survey with an estimated response rate of7436 among these a total of 853 respondents completedthe questionnaire e sample included 480 women(5628) which is consistent with the fact that mosthousehold food buyers in China are female [7] Surveysample demographics are shown in Table 3
5 Results
51 Chinese Consumer Ethnocentrism and Trust Scorese mean Chinese consumer ethnocentrism (ETH) scorewas 39417 with a standard deviation of 10341is result isconsistent with the conclusions of Raskovic et al and Liuet al who noted that Chinese consumers generally do notshow high ethnocentrism2930 It could be attributed to theincreasing integration of China in the world economy overthe last 30 years of reform
Based on consumer trust in the four organic labels asshown in Table 4 mean consumer trust was 475 with somedifferences found among labels Mean trust for the fourorganic labels was in descending order USORG (542)JPORG (534) ARORG (473) and CNORG (432) Furtheranalysis of mean consumer trust by dependent-sample t-testrevealed significant differences in mean consumer trustamong the four organic labels (all plt 001) Mean consumertrust in USORG and JPORG were similar and much higherthan that in ARORG and CNORG Consumers had moretrust in organic labels from developed countriesregionsis is consistent with previous research indicating thatproducts from developed countries are often more popularthan those from developing countries [42]
As seen in Table 4 differences in trust were also foundamong different certifiers Dependent-sample t-test showedsignificant differences in mean consumer trust (all plt 001)Consumers had the highest trust in USCERT followed byACACERT then ARCERT and GOVCERT and lastlyPRICERT Consumers showed lower trust in private thangovernment certification and lower trust in domestic thanforeign certifiers especially certifiers from developedcountries is coincides with the findings of Wu et al [7]
52 ML Model Estimates Effect coding was used in theanalysis Assumptions for the relevant parameter distribu-tions are as follows first the coefficients of the price (PRICE)and opt-out variables were fixed and secondly the attributelevels followed normal distribution [43] Table 5 shows theML model estimation results using NLOGIT 50 As seen inTable 5 the ML model estimates showed significantlypositive two-way interactions (and thus complementaryrelationships) between USCERT and USORG and betweenARCERTand ARORG Certification of USORG by USCERTand certification of ARORG by ARCERT both generatedpositive effects on the combined main effects of the twoattributes For foreign certifiers certification of organic la-bels from their respective countries improved Chineseconsumer preferences In addition ACACERT exhibitedsignificantly positive interactions with USORG JPORG andARORG us certification of USORG JPORG andARORG by academic institutions also generated positiveeffects on the combined main effects of the two attributesis might be because consumers assumed that the ability ofacademic institutions to provide certification services forforeign organic labels highlighted their professional com-petence thereby increasing consumer preference issupports earlier findings that showed complementary orsubstitutional relationships between different attributes offood [7 42]
53 Estimates of WTP Based on the estimates in Table 5 aswell as the characteristics of the ordinal utilities of the maineffects of an attribute WTP was calculated as follows
WTPk minus2 timesβk + βETHtimesak
times ETH + βLTRUSTtimesaktimes LTRUST + βCTRUSTtimesak
times CTRUST +1113936jβktimesj times aj
βprice1113888 1113889 (9)
where WTPk is the WTP for level k of the attribute of in-terest βk is the coefficient of the main effect of level k of thisattribute βETHtimesak
is the coefficient of the interaction betweenETH and level k of the attribute βLTRUSTtimesak
and βCTRUSTtimesak
are the coefficients of the interaction between LTRUST andCTRUST and level k of the attribute respectively βktimesj is thecoefficient of the interaction between level k of the attribute
and other attributes and βprice is the estimated price co-efficient Because effect coding was used in the analysis theWTP should be multiplied by 2 in the calculation [44] econfidence interval of WTP was estimated using the para-metric bootstrapping technique (PBT) [45] Table 6 presentsthe mean WTP estimates for different organic labels andcertifiers and the corresponding confidence intervals
6 Journal of Food Quality
Table 4 Participantsrsquo trust in different organic labels and certifiers
Label Mean Standard deviation Certifiers Mean Standard deviationUSORG 542 13547 GOVCERT 496 10357JPORG 534 11357 PRICERT 394 07586ARORG 473 09834 ACACERT 524 08674CNORG 432 07589 USCERT 568 12457mdash mdash mdash ARCERT 502 11567AVERAGEa 495 12498 AVERAGEa 486 10247aMean consumer trust in all organic labels or certifiers
Table 5 Mixed logit model result on consumersrsquo preferences for attributes of organic tomatoes
Table 3 Sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents
Variables Categories Number of respondents Percentage of sample
Gender Female 480 5628Male 373 4372
Agea18ndash45 years 404 473946ndash60 years 294 3447gt60 years 155 1814
EducationbHigh education 260 3045
Medium education 340 3986Low education 253 2970
Family income (per year)clt8015US$ 264 3132
8015ndash16030US$ 358 4247gt16030US$ 221 2621
aAccording to the China Statistical Yearbook individuals aged 18ndash45 years are classified as young 46ndash60 years are classified as middle-aged and over the ageof 60 are classified as old Respondents were classified per the same criteria in this study e age structure of respondents was consistent with that of theChinese population reported in the China Statistical Yearbook as well as with that of Shandong Province reported in the Shandong Statistical YearbookbBased on the level of education in Mainland China as well as the criteria used in the China and Shandong Statistical Yearbooks low education denotesprimary school or lower medium education denotes junior high or high school and high education denotes university or higher e education level ofrespondents was consistent with that of urban residents in Shandong Province as reported in the Shandong Statistical Yearbook and slightly higher than thatof Chinese urban residents as reported in the China Statistical Yearbook cBased on the economic development and consumer income levels in MainlandChina an annual family income of less than 8015US$ is defined as low income 8015ndash16030US$ is defined as medium income and greater than 16030US$is defined as high income As this study aimed to understand the willingness of consumers to pay for organic food participants were recruited from urbansupermarkets and business districts e income level of the participants was slightly higher than the per capita income of the Chinese and Shandongpopulations reported in the China and Shandong Statistical Yearbooks respectively
Journal of Food Quality 7
Consumer ethnocentrism and trust variables were held atthe sample average level Attribute variables entered as in-teractions were held at minus1
As shown in Table 6 there were considerable differencesin consumer WTP for different organic labels e order ofconsumer preference for the organic labels was not con-sistent with that of consumer trust shown in Table 7 Amongthe four organic labels the highest WTP was expressed forUSORG (US$ 1589) followed by ARORG (US$ 1116)JPORG (US$ 1027) and lastly by CNORG (US$ 0729) Interms of WTP for different certifiers consumers had thehighest WTP for USCERT (US$ 1768) followed by ACA-CERT (US$ 1216) ARCERT (US$ 1042) and finallyGOVCERT (US$ 0837) is is the same as the order ofmean trust in different certifiers shown in Table 4
Consumers tend to assume that the US as a developedcountry has stricter food quality management and organiccertification supervision7 erefore a much higher WTPwas expressed for USORG and USCERT is agrees with
Table 6 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay measured at the sampleaverage level of ethnocentrism and trust
Attribute level Coef SE 95 CIUSORG 1589lowastlowastlowast 0529 [0552 2626]JPORG 1027lowastlowastlowast 0374 [0294 1760]ARORG 1116lowastlowastlowast 0286 [0555 1677]CNORG 0729lowastlowastlowast 0307 [0127 1331]USCERT 1768lowastlowastlowast 0299 [1182 2354]ARCERT 1042lowastlowastlowast 0304 [0446 1638]GOVCERT 0837lowastlowastlowast 0234 [0378 1296]ACACERT 1216lowastlowastlowast 0295 [0638 1794]lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively
8 Journal of Food Quality
studies on country-of-origin effects that products (or ser-vices) from developed countries are always more popularthan those from developing countries [42] Of note a muchlower WTP was expressed for organic labels from Japan adeveloped country and was even slightly lower than theWTP for organic labels from Argentina a developingcountry By contrast the mean trust in USORG and JPORGwas similar and much higher than that in ARORG orCNORG as shown in Table 7 e deviation between trustand WTP ie relatively low WTP for JPORG might bebased on several reasons First consumers might considerthat Japan an island country with a small territory doesnot have competitive advantages in agricultural pro-duction second it might be related to consumer ethno-centrism and the complex Sino-Japanese relationshipAnother surprising finding was that a relatively high WTPwas expressed for organic labels from Argentina a countrythat is relatively similar to China in economic developmentA possible reason is that Argentina is a large agriculturalcountry with a competitive advantage in agriculturalproduction and the second largest organic farmland area inthe world It is also a large developing country like Chinawhich might generate positive country-of-origin effects onthe products (or services) of Argentina As shown in Ta-ble 6 the lowest WTP was expressed for CNORG Incontrast Alphonce and Alfnes and Lusk et al argued thatconsumers have greater loyalty to their own country anddiscriminate against other countries to some extent[46 47] e possible reasons for this inconsistency are asfollows (1) Many Chinese consumers believe that agri-cultural science and technology and management levels inChina fall far behind those of developed countries withorganic certification no exception In addition someconsumers exhibit blind faith in foreign products which isa belief primarily based on purchase experience Con-sumers can believe that products from developed countriesare of a higher quality than those made in China even whenquality is the same [7] (2)e misuse and even falsificationof organic labels has jeopardized the development of thisemerging market in China (After inspecting the authen-ticity of organic certification in 2014 the Certification andAccreditation Administration of the PRC declared a re-markable misuse rate of 58 in certification labels Ofthem 50 were due to the prolonged use of certificates286 were suspected of lacking organic codes 143 weresuspected of using counterfeit organic codes and 71 didnot use certification labels as specified Source Sohu httpmtsohucom20160621n455577833shtml) Numerouscertification fraud incidents have occurred in recent years
e ldquoChongqing Wal-Mart green porkrdquo incident in 2011and the ldquoGuizhou organic Maotairdquo incident in 2013 bothimpacted the authority of Chinese food safety certificationand reduced consumer trust in Chinese organic labelsus consumers believe that the reliability of organic labelsfrom other developing countries such as Argentina ishigher than that of China
e WTP estimates for certifiers in Table 6 showed thatconsumers were willing to pay higher premiums forGOVCERT than PRICERT Janssen and Hamm found thatconsumers in some countries have a higher WTP forgovernment-certified labels than private ones whereas theopposite is true in other countries furthermore consumersin some countries do not show significantly different WTPbetween the two labels and consumer preferences for labelscan vary with the type of organic product [5]
54 Consumer Ethnocentrism and WTP for Organic FoodTo further examine the sensitivity of consumer WTP basedon different levels of ethnocentrism using the parametricbootstrapping technique outlined in Hole we calculatedWTP measures for each type of organic label and certifierbased on different levels of ETH [45] In this calculation thelevels of trust in labels (LTRUST) and trust in certifiers(CTRUST) were held at sample average while ETH wasallowed to change from 1 to 7 taking only integer valuesTable 8 shows the result
As seen in Table 8 there were considerable differences inthe order of preference for the organic labels among the ETHlevels e greatest difference was observed in their WTP forJapanese and Chinese organic labels When the level of ETH islow the order of WTP for organic labels from differentcountries was USORGgt JPORGgtARORGgtCNORG eirWTP for USORG and JPORG was much higher than that forARORG which was in turn much higher than that forCNORG With increases in ETH the WTP for USORG andARORG decreased especially for JPORG but the WTP forCNORG increased When the level of ETH is relatively highthere is a different WTP order for organic labels from differentcountries that is USORGgtCNORGgtARORGgt JPORGey showed amuch higherWTP for CNORG and although itwas lower than the WTP for USORG it was higher than thatfor ARORG and JPORG (which had the lowestWTP) Overallwith the increase in ETH consumers showed a lower WTP forforeign organic labels especially for those from Japan and asignificantly higher WTP for organic labels from China isindicated that ETH had a considerable impact on consumerpreferences
Table 7 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay for organic labels based on different levels of trust in organic labels
Label LTRUST1 LTRUST 2 LTRUST 3 LTRUST 4 LTRUST 5 LTRUST 6 LTRUST 7USORG 1531lowastlowastlowast (0583) 1511lowastlowastlowast (0579) 1576lowastlowastlowast (0548) 1588lowastlowastlowast (0573) 1592lowastlowastlowast (0566) 1607lowastlowastlowast (0602) 1608lowastlowastlowast (0598)JPORG 0903lowastlowastlowast (0341) 0923lowastlowastlowast (0349) 0955lowastlowastlowast (0362) 1056lowastlowastlowast (0359) 1109lowastlowastlowast (0403) 1111lowastlowastlowast (0412) 1114lowastlowastlowast (0409)ARORG 1112lowastlowastlowast (0409) 1108lowastlowastlowast (0396) 1134lowastlowastlowast (0421) 1197lowastlowastlowast (0430) 1211lowastlowastlowast (0462) 1257lowastlowastlowast (0473) 1266lowastlowastlowast (0471)CNORG 0599lowastlowastlowast (0212) 0605lowastlowastlowast (0227) 0710lowastlowastlowast (0221) 0715lowastlowastlowast (0247) 0813lowastlowastlowast (0289) 0907lowastlowastlowast (0301) 0915lowastlowastlowast (0315)lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Standard errors of consumerWTPs are reported within the brackets Consumerethnocentrism and trust in certifiers are held at the sample average level
Journal of Food Quality 9
Table 8 also shows that with the increase in ETHconsumer WTP slightly increased for Chinese certifiersslightly decreased for USCERT and remained substantiallyunchanged for ARCERT Moreover the order of preferencesfor certifiers remains unchanged is indicated that thepreferences of Chinese consumers for domestic and foreigncertifiers were not affected by ethnocentrism to any greatextent Since its reformation the Chinese government hasgenerally adopted a policy of encouraging direct foreigninvestment In this context Chinese consumers have alsowelcomed direct foreign investment and view its contributionto domestic employment and economic growth positivelyHowever this speculation needs further verification
55 Trust Effects on Preferences and WTP For a similarreason WTP measured at different levels of trust for eachtype of organic label and certifier was calculated whileallowing the trust measures to change from 1 to 7 takingevery integer values in between When calculating the im-pact of trust in organic labels (LTRUST) consumer eth-nocentrism (ETH) and trust in certifiers (CTRUST) wereheld at sample average Variables ETH and LTRUST wereheld at the sample average while calculating the impact ofCTRUST e results are shown in Tables 7 and 9
Based on results in Table 7 with the increase in con-sumer trust (the respondents were grouped in five differentways per their trust in the four organic labels as well asaverage trust e WTP for each type of organic label wasthen calculated for the different groups However only theWTP of respondents grouped by average trust (AVERAGE)are discussed in this paper Based on the survey data thecorrelation coefficients between the trust scores for thedifferent organic labels were all greater than 08 indicating apositive correlation between trust scores for each type oforganic label Although consumer trust varied among theorganic labels consumers with a higher trust in a certainorganic label were more inclined to trust the other threetypes of organic labels Our calculation results also showedno significant differences in WTP among the trust groupswhen the respondents were grouped as mentioned aboveGiven space limitations the calculation results for all groupsare not presented e same is true for the grouping ofrespondents by their trust in different certifiers) the order ofpreference for the organic labels remained the sameUSORGgtARORGgt JPORGgtCNORG Similarly the orderof preference for the certifiers remained the same
USCERTgtACACERTgtARCERTgtGOVCERT Howeverwith the increase in trust consumer WTP for each type oforganic label and certifier generally increased which cor-roborates previous research on consumer WTP for organicfood12 It is worth noting that in general the difference inWTP among organic labels decreased with the increase intrust For example according to Table 7 when consumertrust in organic labels increased from 1 to 7 the differencebetween their WTP for a US label and a Chinese labeldecreased fromUS$ 0932 to $ 0693 respectively ConsumerWTP for other labels showed a similar trend
Similarly the data in Table 9 indicate that the differencesin WTP among certifiers also decreased with the increase intrust (Table 9) Due to the frequent food safety incidents andscandals in China in recent years consumers in the low trustgroups had lower levels of trust in Chinese organic labels andcertifiers but relatively higher levels of trust in foreignorganic labels and foreign-invested certifiers thus resultingin greater differences in their WTP is suggests that anincrease in consumer trust in organic certification will helpto enhance WTP especially for Chinese organic labels andcertifiers
6 Conclusions and Limitations
61 Conclusions In this paper consumer WTP for organiclabels from different sources was examined using the choiceexperiment method and mixed logit model Furthermorethe impacts of consumer ethnocentrism and trust on con-sumer preferences were analyzed e main conclusions areas follows (1) Mean consumer trust in organic labels variedwith the country of origin e highest level of trust wasfound in US organic labels followed by Japanese Argentineand Chinese organic labels Consumer trust in certifiers alsosignificantly differed with the country of origin e highestlevel of trust was found in US-invested certifiers followed byChinese academic institution-supported Argentine-invested and Chinese government-supported certifiersand lastly in Chinese private certifiers (2) Consumer WTPvaried greatly among the organic labels e highest WTPwas expressed for US organic labels followed by Argentineand Japanese organic labels and lastly Chinese organic la-bels e order of WTP was not consistent with that ofconsumer trust mainly due to the relatively low WTP forJapanese organic labels Chinese consumers not only showedstrong preference for US organic labels but also the highest
Table 8 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay based on different levels of ethnocentrism
Level ETH 1 ETH 2 ETH 3 ETH 4 ETH 5 ETH 6 ETH 7USORG 1638lowastlowastlowast 1618lowastlowastlowast 1597lowastlowastlowast 1582lowastlowastlowast 1501lowastlowastlowast 1428lowastlowastlowast 1431lowastlowastlowastJPORG 1321lowastlowastlowast 1317lowastlowastlowast 1205lowastlowastlowast 1113lowastlowastlowast 0954lowastlowastlowast 0886lowastlowastlowast 0884lowastlowastlowastARORG 1129lowastlowastlowast 1125lowastlowastlowast 1125lowastlowastlowast 1121lowastlowastlowast 1003lowastlowastlowast 0922lowastlowastlowast 0829lowastlowastlowastCNORG 0685lowastlowastlowast 0698lowastlowastlowast 0738lowastlowastlowast 0754lowastlowastlowast 0893lowastlowastlowast 1029lowastlowastlowast 1253lowastlowastlowastUSCERT 1508lowastlowastlowast 1504lowastlowastlowast 1496lowastlowastlowast 1486lowastlowastlowast 1395lowastlowastlowast 1370lowastlowastlowast 1371lowastlowastlowastARCERT 1460lowastlowastlowast 1451lowastlowastlowast 1448lowastlowastlowast 1436lowastlowastlowast 1431lowastlowastlowast 1434lowastlowastlowast 1433lowastlowastlowastGOVCERT 1080lowastlowastlowast 1085lowastlowastlowast 1107lowastlowastlowast 1115lowastlowastlowast 1311lowastlowastlowast 1308lowastlowastlowast 1319lowastlowastlowastACACERT 0891lowastlowastlowast 0882lowastlowastlowast 0921lowastlowastlowast 0936lowastlowastlowast 1086lowastlowastlowast 1165lowastlowastlowast 1172lowastlowastlowastlowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowast denote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Variables LTRUST and CTRUST are held at the sample average level
10 Journal of Food Quality
WTP for US-invested certifiers followed by Chinese aca-demic institution-supported Argentine-invested and Chi-nese government-supported certifiersis is the same as theorder of mean trust in different certifiers (3) Certification oforganic labels from their respective countries improvedChinese consumer preferences In addition academicinstitution-supported certifier exhibited significantly posi-tive interactions with foreign organic labels (4) Chineseconsumers did not show high ethnocentrism Howeverthere was a considerable discrepancy in the order of pref-erence for the organic labels among the ETH levels With theincrease in consumer ethnocentrism consumers showed asubstantially lower WTP for Japanese organic labels and asignificantly higher WTP for Chinese organic labels Con-sumer WTP for certifiers did not change significantly withthe increase in ETH with a slight increase for Chinesecertifiers slight decrease for US-invested certifiers andstability for Argentine-invested certifiers (5) e order ofpreference for different organic labels and that for variouscertifiers did not change with the increase in consumer trustHowever consumer WTP for each type of organic labelgenerally increased with the increase in trust It is worthnoting that the differences in consumerWTP among organiclabels and among certifiers decreased with the increase intrust
Overall Chinese consumers showed different WTPs fororganic labels from different sources due to consumerethnocentrism and trustese conclusions should serve as avital basis for food suppliers in their selection of certificationservices and target market positioning Moreover this re-search can not only serve as a guidance for the reformationof the certification system and development of the certifiedfood market in China but also provide information toforeign certification service providers when entering theChinese market
62Limitations is study had the following limitations (1)Our research was conducted during the period when Sino-Japanese economic and trade relations had cooled due to theDiaoyu Islands dispute and other issues is historicalbackground inevitably affected consumer attitudes towardsJapanese products or services to varying degrees usconsumer WTP for Japanese organic labels should betracked over a longer period (2) Countries-of-origins werelimited to the US Japan Argentina and ChinaeWTPs ofChinese consumers for organic labels from other countriesregions such as Canada and Brazil need to be further in-vestigated (3) Consumer trust in different organic labels and
certifiers were examined separately however trust was notexamined in regards to a specific type of organic label from aspecific type of certifier such as a US organic label issued bya Chinese government-supported certifier which should beexamined in future research
Data Availability
e data used to support the findings of this study areavailable from the corresponding author upon request
Conflicts of Interest
e authors declare that there are no conflicts of interestregarding the publication of this article
Acknowledgments
is paper was supported by the study of evaluation of socialwelfare of quality and safety certification policy for agri-cultural products in the new era in China a project of theSocial Science Foundation of China (Approval no18BJY153)
References
[1] S J Yin R Li L H Wu and X J Chen Introduction to 2018China Development Report on Food Satety Peking UniversityPress Beijing China 2018
[2] M R Darby and E Karni ldquoFree competition and the optimalamount of fraudrdquo Journal of Law and Economics vol 16 no 1pp 67ndash88 1973
[3] F Albersmeier H Schulze and A Spiller ldquoSystem dynamicsin food quality certifications development of an audit in-tegrity systemrdquo International Journal of Food System Dy-namics vol 1 no 1 pp 69ndash81 2010
[4] E Golan F Kuchler L Mitchell C Greene and A JessupldquoEconomics of food labellingrdquo Journal of Consumer Policyvol 24 no 2 pp 117ndash184 2001
[5] M Janssen and U Hamm ldquoProduct labelling in the marketfor organic food consumer preferences and willingness-to-pay for different organic certification logosrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 25 no 1 pp 9ndash22 2012
[6] S J Yin Information Asymmetry Certification Effectivenessand Consumer Preferences An Case Study of Organic FoodChina Social Sciences Press Beijing China 2013
[7] L H Wu S J Yin Y J Xu and D Zhu ldquoEffectiveness ofChinarsquos organic food certification policy consumer prefer-ences for infant milk formula with different organic certifi-cation labelsrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevue canadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 62 no 4 pp 545ndash5682014
Table 9 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay for certifiers based on different levels of trust in certifiers
Certifiers CTRUST1 CTRUST 2 CTRUST 3 CTRUST 4 CTRUST 5 CTRUST 6 CTRUST 7USCERT 1473lowastlowastlowast (0521) 1481lowastlowastlowast (0499) 1521lowastlowastlowast (0532) 1632lowastlowastlowast (0578) 1669lowastlowastlowast (0592) 1717lowastlowastlowast (0623) 1785lowastlowastlowast (0637)ARCERT 0756lowastlowastlowast (0213) 0803lowastlowastlowast (0201) 0956lowastlowastlowast (0266) 1127lowastlowastlowast (0242) 1151lowastlowastlowast (0308) 1286lowastlowastlowast (0403) 1301lowastlowastlowast (0424)GOVCERT 0974lowastlowastlowast (0359) 1006lowastlowastlowast (0362) 1128lowastlowastlowast (0412) 1315lowastlowastlowast (0437) 1346lowastlowastlowast (0464) 1385lowastlowastlowast (0502) 1402lowastlowastlowast (0521)ACACERT 0713lowastlowastlowast (0245) 0721lowastlowastlowast (0257) 0974lowastlowastlowast (0291) 1102lowastlowastlowast (0286) 1142lowastlowastlowast (0331) 1213lowastlowastlowast (0392) 1291lowastlowastlowast (0378)lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Standard errors of consumersrsquoWTPs are reported within the brackets Consumerethnocentrism and trust in organic labels are held at the sample average level
Journal of Food Quality 11
[8] National Bureau of Statistics of China National StatisticalYearbook China Statistics Press Beijing China 2015
[9] FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations) FAO Statistical Yearbooks FAO Rome Italy 2016httpwwwfaoorgfaostatendata
[10] L Probst E Houedjofonon H M Ayerakwa and R HaasldquoWill they buy it e potential for marketing organic veg-etables in the food vending sector to strengthen vegetablesafety a choice experiment study in threeWest African citiesrdquoFood Policy vol 37 no 3 pp 296ndash308 2012
[11] V Falguera N Aliguer and M Falguera ldquoAn integratedapproach to current trends in food consumption movingtoward functional and organic productsrdquo Food Controlvol 26 no 2 pp 274ndash281 2012
[12] R D Liu Z Pieniak and W Verbeke ldquoConsumersrsquo attitudesand behaviour towards safe food in China a reviewrdquo FoodControl vol 33 no 1 pp 93ndash104 2013
[13] F Soler J M Gil andM Sanchez ldquoConsumer acceptability oforganic food in Spain results from an experimental auctionmarketrdquo British Food Journal vol 104 no 8 pp 670ndash6872002
[14] R B Tranter R M Bennett L Costa et al ldquoConsumersrsquowillingness-to-pay for organic conversion-grade food evi-dence from five EU countriesrdquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 287ndash294 2009
[15] S Rousseau and L Vranken ldquoGreen market expansion byreducing information asymmetries evidence for labeled or-ganic food productsrdquo Food Policy vol 40 no 2 pp 31ndash432013
[16] F Napolitano and A Braghieri ldquoEffect of information aboutorganic production on beef liking and consumer willingnessto payrdquo Food Quality and Preference vol 21 no 2pp 207ndash212 2010
[17] C Hempel and U Hamm ldquoHow important is local food toorganic-minded consumersrdquo Appetite vol 96 no 1pp 309ndash318 2016
[18] I Olesen F Alfnes M B Roslashra and K Kolstad ldquoElicitingconsumersrsquo willingness to pay for organic and welfare-labelledsalmon in a non-hypothetical choice experimentrdquo LivestockScience vol 127 no 2-3 pp 218ndash226 2010
[19] E J Van Loo V Caputo R M Nayga J F Meullenet andS C Ricke ldquoConsumer willingness to pay for organic chickenbreast evidence from choice experimentrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 22 no 7 pp 603ndash613 2011
[20] B Roitner-Schobesberger I Darnhofer S Somsook andC R Vogl ldquoConsumer perceptions of organic foods inBangkok ailandrdquo Food Policy vol 33 no 2 pp 112ndash1212008
[21] G Vittersoslash and T Tangeland ldquoe role of consumers intransitions towards sustainable food consumption the case oforganic food in Norwayrdquo Journal of Cleaner Productionvol 92 no 1 pp 91ndash99 2015
[22] S J Yin M Chen Y S Chen Y Xu Z Zou and YiqinWangldquoConsumer trust in organic milk of different brands the roleof Chinese organic labelrdquo British Food Journal vol 118 no 7pp 1769ndash1782 2016
[23] J L Hsu and H P Nien ldquoWho are ethnocentric Examiningconsumer ethnocentrism in Chinese societiesrdquo Journal ofConsumer Behaviour vol 7 no 6 pp 436ndash447 2008
[24] G Hustvedt K A Carroll and J C Bernard ldquoConsumerethnocentricity and preferences for wool products by countryof origin and manufacturerdquo International Journal of Con-sumer Studies vol 37 no 5 pp 498ndash506 2013
[25] T A Shimp and S Sharma ldquoConsumer ethnocentrismconstruction and validation of the CETSCALErdquo Journal ofMarketing Research vol 24 no 3 pp 280ndash289 1987
[26] L Yan and H He ldquoEvaluation of international brand alli-ances brand order and consumer ethnocentrismrdquo Journal ofBusiness Research vol 66 no 1 pp 89ndash97 2013
[27] K L Granzin and J J Painter ldquoMotivational influences onldquobuy domesticrdquo purchasing marketing management impli-cations from a study of two nationsrdquo Journal of InternationalMarketing vol 9 no 2 pp 73ndash96 2001
[28] J G Klein R Ettenson and M D Morris ldquoe animositymodel of foreign product purchase an empirical test in thePeoplersquos Republic of Chinardquo Journal of Marketing vol 62no 1 pp 89ndash100 1998
[29] F Liu J Murphy J Li and X Liu ldquoEnglish and Chinese therole of consumer ethnocentrism and country of origin inChinese attitudes towards store signsrdquo Australasian Mar-keting Journal vol 14 no 2 pp 5ndash16 2007
[30] M Raskovic Z Ding V Skare ETH O Dosen and V ZabkarldquoComparing consumer innovativeness and ethnocentrism ofyoung-adult consumersrdquo Journal of Business Research vol 69no 9 pp 3682ndash3686 2016
[31] J He and C L Wang ldquoCultural identity and consumerethnocentrism impacts on preference and purchase of do-mestic versus import brands an empirical study in ChinardquoJournal of Business Research vol 68 no 6 pp 1225ndash12332015
[32] W Helga and J Lernoud $e world of organic agriculturestatistics and emerging trends 2014 httporgprintsorg251721willer-lernoud-2014-world-of-organicpdf
[33] R M Dawes and B Corrigan ldquoLinear models in decisionmakingrdquo Psychological Bulletin vol 81 no 2 pp 95ndash1061974
[34] J J Louviere D A Hensher and J D Swait Stated ChoiceMethods Analysis and Applications Cambridge UniversityPress Cambridge UK 2000
[35] G J Zhuang N Zhou and L X Zhou ldquoNational-brandconsciousness brand characteristics and consumer prefer-ence for indigenous brandsrdquo Management World vol 21pp 85ndash94 2006
[36] E Delgado-Ballester and J L Munuera-Aleman ldquoBrand trustin the context of consumer loyaltyrdquo European Journal ofMarketing vol 35 no 11-12 pp 1238ndash1258 2001
[37] R Lassoued J E Hobbs E T Micheels and D D ZhangldquoConsumer trust in chicken brands a structural equationmodelrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevuecanadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 63 no 4 pp 621ndash647 2015
[38] K J Lancaster ldquoA new approach to consumer theoryrdquoJournal of Political Economy vol 74 no 2 pp 132ndash157 1966
[39] J S James B J Rickard and W J Rossman ldquoProduct dif-ferentiation and market segmentation in applesauce using achoice experiment to assess the value of organic local andnutrition attributesrdquo Agricultural and Resource EconomicsReview vol 38 no 3 pp 357ndash370 2009
[40] D McFadden and K Train ldquoMixed MNL models for discreteresponserdquo Journal of Applied Econometrics vol 15 no 5pp 447ndash470 2000
[41] A Claret L Guerrero E Aguirre et al ldquoConsumer prefer-ences for sea fish using conjoint analysis exploratory study ofthe importance of country of origin obtaining methodstorage conditions and purchasing pricerdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 26 no 2 pp 259ndash266 2012
12 Journal of Food Quality
[42] Y Y Cai and J X He ldquoJoy and peace an empirical study onthe effect of positive emotion on the country of originrdquoJournal of Marketing Science vol 8 pp 76ndash87 2012
[43] D Ubilava and K Foster ldquoQuality certification vs producttraceability consumer preferences for informational attri-butes of pork in Georgiardquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 305ndash310 2009
[44] J L Lusk J Roosen and J A Fox ldquoDemand for beef from cattleadministered growth hormones or fed genetically modifiedcorn a comparison of consumers in France Germany theUnited Kingdom and the United Statesrdquo American Journal ofAgricultural Economics vol 85 no 1 pp 16ndash29 2003
[45] A R Hole ldquoA comparison of approaches to estimatingconfidence intervals for willingness to pay measuresrdquo HealthEconomics vol 16 no 8 pp 827ndash840 2007
[46] R Alphonce and F Alfnes ldquoConsumer willingness to pay forfood safety in Tanzania an incentive-aligned conjoint anal-ysisrdquo International Journal of Consumer Studies vol 36 no 4pp 394ndash400 2012
[47] J L Lusk J Brown T Mark I Proseku R ompson andJ Welsh ldquoConsumer behavior public policy and country-of-origin labellingrdquo Review of Agricultural Economics vol 28no 2 pp 284ndash292 2006
e second phase involves implementing the actualsurvey from October to December 2015 Participants wererecruited at random near supermarkets or shopping centersto take part in an in-person survey in each of the nine citiesAlthough supermarkets and farmersrsquo markets are the mainplaces for Chinese residents to buy vegetables organicvegetables are mainly sold in supermarkets and organic foodstores in business districts6 which was also verified by thefocus group interviews e survey was administered bytrained investigators to ensure consistency Every thirdindividual approaching our booth was intercepted as apossible respondent to ensure the randomness of the sampleA total of 907 consumers (around 100 in each city) par-ticipated in the survey with an estimated response rate of7436 among these a total of 853 respondents completedthe questionnaire e sample included 480 women(5628) which is consistent with the fact that mosthousehold food buyers in China are female [7] Surveysample demographics are shown in Table 3
5 Results
51 Chinese Consumer Ethnocentrism and Trust Scorese mean Chinese consumer ethnocentrism (ETH) scorewas 39417 with a standard deviation of 10341is result isconsistent with the conclusions of Raskovic et al and Liuet al who noted that Chinese consumers generally do notshow high ethnocentrism2930 It could be attributed to theincreasing integration of China in the world economy overthe last 30 years of reform
Based on consumer trust in the four organic labels asshown in Table 4 mean consumer trust was 475 with somedifferences found among labels Mean trust for the fourorganic labels was in descending order USORG (542)JPORG (534) ARORG (473) and CNORG (432) Furtheranalysis of mean consumer trust by dependent-sample t-testrevealed significant differences in mean consumer trustamong the four organic labels (all plt 001) Mean consumertrust in USORG and JPORG were similar and much higherthan that in ARORG and CNORG Consumers had moretrust in organic labels from developed countriesregionsis is consistent with previous research indicating thatproducts from developed countries are often more popularthan those from developing countries [42]
As seen in Table 4 differences in trust were also foundamong different certifiers Dependent-sample t-test showedsignificant differences in mean consumer trust (all plt 001)Consumers had the highest trust in USCERT followed byACACERT then ARCERT and GOVCERT and lastlyPRICERT Consumers showed lower trust in private thangovernment certification and lower trust in domestic thanforeign certifiers especially certifiers from developedcountries is coincides with the findings of Wu et al [7]
52 ML Model Estimates Effect coding was used in theanalysis Assumptions for the relevant parameter distribu-tions are as follows first the coefficients of the price (PRICE)and opt-out variables were fixed and secondly the attributelevels followed normal distribution [43] Table 5 shows theML model estimation results using NLOGIT 50 As seen inTable 5 the ML model estimates showed significantlypositive two-way interactions (and thus complementaryrelationships) between USCERT and USORG and betweenARCERTand ARORG Certification of USORG by USCERTand certification of ARORG by ARCERT both generatedpositive effects on the combined main effects of the twoattributes For foreign certifiers certification of organic la-bels from their respective countries improved Chineseconsumer preferences In addition ACACERT exhibitedsignificantly positive interactions with USORG JPORG andARORG us certification of USORG JPORG andARORG by academic institutions also generated positiveeffects on the combined main effects of the two attributesis might be because consumers assumed that the ability ofacademic institutions to provide certification services forforeign organic labels highlighted their professional com-petence thereby increasing consumer preference issupports earlier findings that showed complementary orsubstitutional relationships between different attributes offood [7 42]
53 Estimates of WTP Based on the estimates in Table 5 aswell as the characteristics of the ordinal utilities of the maineffects of an attribute WTP was calculated as follows
WTPk minus2 timesβk + βETHtimesak
times ETH + βLTRUSTtimesaktimes LTRUST + βCTRUSTtimesak
times CTRUST +1113936jβktimesj times aj
βprice1113888 1113889 (9)
where WTPk is the WTP for level k of the attribute of in-terest βk is the coefficient of the main effect of level k of thisattribute βETHtimesak
is the coefficient of the interaction betweenETH and level k of the attribute βLTRUSTtimesak
and βCTRUSTtimesak
are the coefficients of the interaction between LTRUST andCTRUST and level k of the attribute respectively βktimesj is thecoefficient of the interaction between level k of the attribute
and other attributes and βprice is the estimated price co-efficient Because effect coding was used in the analysis theWTP should be multiplied by 2 in the calculation [44] econfidence interval of WTP was estimated using the para-metric bootstrapping technique (PBT) [45] Table 6 presentsthe mean WTP estimates for different organic labels andcertifiers and the corresponding confidence intervals
6 Journal of Food Quality
Table 4 Participantsrsquo trust in different organic labels and certifiers
Label Mean Standard deviation Certifiers Mean Standard deviationUSORG 542 13547 GOVCERT 496 10357JPORG 534 11357 PRICERT 394 07586ARORG 473 09834 ACACERT 524 08674CNORG 432 07589 USCERT 568 12457mdash mdash mdash ARCERT 502 11567AVERAGEa 495 12498 AVERAGEa 486 10247aMean consumer trust in all organic labels or certifiers
Table 5 Mixed logit model result on consumersrsquo preferences for attributes of organic tomatoes
Table 3 Sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents
Variables Categories Number of respondents Percentage of sample
Gender Female 480 5628Male 373 4372
Agea18ndash45 years 404 473946ndash60 years 294 3447gt60 years 155 1814
EducationbHigh education 260 3045
Medium education 340 3986Low education 253 2970
Family income (per year)clt8015US$ 264 3132
8015ndash16030US$ 358 4247gt16030US$ 221 2621
aAccording to the China Statistical Yearbook individuals aged 18ndash45 years are classified as young 46ndash60 years are classified as middle-aged and over the ageof 60 are classified as old Respondents were classified per the same criteria in this study e age structure of respondents was consistent with that of theChinese population reported in the China Statistical Yearbook as well as with that of Shandong Province reported in the Shandong Statistical YearbookbBased on the level of education in Mainland China as well as the criteria used in the China and Shandong Statistical Yearbooks low education denotesprimary school or lower medium education denotes junior high or high school and high education denotes university or higher e education level ofrespondents was consistent with that of urban residents in Shandong Province as reported in the Shandong Statistical Yearbook and slightly higher than thatof Chinese urban residents as reported in the China Statistical Yearbook cBased on the economic development and consumer income levels in MainlandChina an annual family income of less than 8015US$ is defined as low income 8015ndash16030US$ is defined as medium income and greater than 16030US$is defined as high income As this study aimed to understand the willingness of consumers to pay for organic food participants were recruited from urbansupermarkets and business districts e income level of the participants was slightly higher than the per capita income of the Chinese and Shandongpopulations reported in the China and Shandong Statistical Yearbooks respectively
Journal of Food Quality 7
Consumer ethnocentrism and trust variables were held atthe sample average level Attribute variables entered as in-teractions were held at minus1
As shown in Table 6 there were considerable differencesin consumer WTP for different organic labels e order ofconsumer preference for the organic labels was not con-sistent with that of consumer trust shown in Table 7 Amongthe four organic labels the highest WTP was expressed forUSORG (US$ 1589) followed by ARORG (US$ 1116)JPORG (US$ 1027) and lastly by CNORG (US$ 0729) Interms of WTP for different certifiers consumers had thehighest WTP for USCERT (US$ 1768) followed by ACA-CERT (US$ 1216) ARCERT (US$ 1042) and finallyGOVCERT (US$ 0837) is is the same as the order ofmean trust in different certifiers shown in Table 4
Consumers tend to assume that the US as a developedcountry has stricter food quality management and organiccertification supervision7 erefore a much higher WTPwas expressed for USORG and USCERT is agrees with
Table 6 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay measured at the sampleaverage level of ethnocentrism and trust
Attribute level Coef SE 95 CIUSORG 1589lowastlowastlowast 0529 [0552 2626]JPORG 1027lowastlowastlowast 0374 [0294 1760]ARORG 1116lowastlowastlowast 0286 [0555 1677]CNORG 0729lowastlowastlowast 0307 [0127 1331]USCERT 1768lowastlowastlowast 0299 [1182 2354]ARCERT 1042lowastlowastlowast 0304 [0446 1638]GOVCERT 0837lowastlowastlowast 0234 [0378 1296]ACACERT 1216lowastlowastlowast 0295 [0638 1794]lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively
8 Journal of Food Quality
studies on country-of-origin effects that products (or ser-vices) from developed countries are always more popularthan those from developing countries [42] Of note a muchlower WTP was expressed for organic labels from Japan adeveloped country and was even slightly lower than theWTP for organic labels from Argentina a developingcountry By contrast the mean trust in USORG and JPORGwas similar and much higher than that in ARORG orCNORG as shown in Table 7 e deviation between trustand WTP ie relatively low WTP for JPORG might bebased on several reasons First consumers might considerthat Japan an island country with a small territory doesnot have competitive advantages in agricultural pro-duction second it might be related to consumer ethno-centrism and the complex Sino-Japanese relationshipAnother surprising finding was that a relatively high WTPwas expressed for organic labels from Argentina a countrythat is relatively similar to China in economic developmentA possible reason is that Argentina is a large agriculturalcountry with a competitive advantage in agriculturalproduction and the second largest organic farmland area inthe world It is also a large developing country like Chinawhich might generate positive country-of-origin effects onthe products (or services) of Argentina As shown in Ta-ble 6 the lowest WTP was expressed for CNORG Incontrast Alphonce and Alfnes and Lusk et al argued thatconsumers have greater loyalty to their own country anddiscriminate against other countries to some extent[46 47] e possible reasons for this inconsistency are asfollows (1) Many Chinese consumers believe that agri-cultural science and technology and management levels inChina fall far behind those of developed countries withorganic certification no exception In addition someconsumers exhibit blind faith in foreign products which isa belief primarily based on purchase experience Con-sumers can believe that products from developed countriesare of a higher quality than those made in China even whenquality is the same [7] (2)e misuse and even falsificationof organic labels has jeopardized the development of thisemerging market in China (After inspecting the authen-ticity of organic certification in 2014 the Certification andAccreditation Administration of the PRC declared a re-markable misuse rate of 58 in certification labels Ofthem 50 were due to the prolonged use of certificates286 were suspected of lacking organic codes 143 weresuspected of using counterfeit organic codes and 71 didnot use certification labels as specified Source Sohu httpmtsohucom20160621n455577833shtml) Numerouscertification fraud incidents have occurred in recent years
e ldquoChongqing Wal-Mart green porkrdquo incident in 2011and the ldquoGuizhou organic Maotairdquo incident in 2013 bothimpacted the authority of Chinese food safety certificationand reduced consumer trust in Chinese organic labelsus consumers believe that the reliability of organic labelsfrom other developing countries such as Argentina ishigher than that of China
e WTP estimates for certifiers in Table 6 showed thatconsumers were willing to pay higher premiums forGOVCERT than PRICERT Janssen and Hamm found thatconsumers in some countries have a higher WTP forgovernment-certified labels than private ones whereas theopposite is true in other countries furthermore consumersin some countries do not show significantly different WTPbetween the two labels and consumer preferences for labelscan vary with the type of organic product [5]
54 Consumer Ethnocentrism and WTP for Organic FoodTo further examine the sensitivity of consumer WTP basedon different levels of ethnocentrism using the parametricbootstrapping technique outlined in Hole we calculatedWTP measures for each type of organic label and certifierbased on different levels of ETH [45] In this calculation thelevels of trust in labels (LTRUST) and trust in certifiers(CTRUST) were held at sample average while ETH wasallowed to change from 1 to 7 taking only integer valuesTable 8 shows the result
As seen in Table 8 there were considerable differences inthe order of preference for the organic labels among the ETHlevels e greatest difference was observed in their WTP forJapanese and Chinese organic labels When the level of ETH islow the order of WTP for organic labels from differentcountries was USORGgt JPORGgtARORGgtCNORG eirWTP for USORG and JPORG was much higher than that forARORG which was in turn much higher than that forCNORG With increases in ETH the WTP for USORG andARORG decreased especially for JPORG but the WTP forCNORG increased When the level of ETH is relatively highthere is a different WTP order for organic labels from differentcountries that is USORGgtCNORGgtARORGgt JPORGey showed amuch higherWTP for CNORG and although itwas lower than the WTP for USORG it was higher than thatfor ARORG and JPORG (which had the lowestWTP) Overallwith the increase in ETH consumers showed a lower WTP forforeign organic labels especially for those from Japan and asignificantly higher WTP for organic labels from China isindicated that ETH had a considerable impact on consumerpreferences
Table 7 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay for organic labels based on different levels of trust in organic labels
Label LTRUST1 LTRUST 2 LTRUST 3 LTRUST 4 LTRUST 5 LTRUST 6 LTRUST 7USORG 1531lowastlowastlowast (0583) 1511lowastlowastlowast (0579) 1576lowastlowastlowast (0548) 1588lowastlowastlowast (0573) 1592lowastlowastlowast (0566) 1607lowastlowastlowast (0602) 1608lowastlowastlowast (0598)JPORG 0903lowastlowastlowast (0341) 0923lowastlowastlowast (0349) 0955lowastlowastlowast (0362) 1056lowastlowastlowast (0359) 1109lowastlowastlowast (0403) 1111lowastlowastlowast (0412) 1114lowastlowastlowast (0409)ARORG 1112lowastlowastlowast (0409) 1108lowastlowastlowast (0396) 1134lowastlowastlowast (0421) 1197lowastlowastlowast (0430) 1211lowastlowastlowast (0462) 1257lowastlowastlowast (0473) 1266lowastlowastlowast (0471)CNORG 0599lowastlowastlowast (0212) 0605lowastlowastlowast (0227) 0710lowastlowastlowast (0221) 0715lowastlowastlowast (0247) 0813lowastlowastlowast (0289) 0907lowastlowastlowast (0301) 0915lowastlowastlowast (0315)lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Standard errors of consumerWTPs are reported within the brackets Consumerethnocentrism and trust in certifiers are held at the sample average level
Journal of Food Quality 9
Table 8 also shows that with the increase in ETHconsumer WTP slightly increased for Chinese certifiersslightly decreased for USCERT and remained substantiallyunchanged for ARCERT Moreover the order of preferencesfor certifiers remains unchanged is indicated that thepreferences of Chinese consumers for domestic and foreigncertifiers were not affected by ethnocentrism to any greatextent Since its reformation the Chinese government hasgenerally adopted a policy of encouraging direct foreigninvestment In this context Chinese consumers have alsowelcomed direct foreign investment and view its contributionto domestic employment and economic growth positivelyHowever this speculation needs further verification
55 Trust Effects on Preferences and WTP For a similarreason WTP measured at different levels of trust for eachtype of organic label and certifier was calculated whileallowing the trust measures to change from 1 to 7 takingevery integer values in between When calculating the im-pact of trust in organic labels (LTRUST) consumer eth-nocentrism (ETH) and trust in certifiers (CTRUST) wereheld at sample average Variables ETH and LTRUST wereheld at the sample average while calculating the impact ofCTRUST e results are shown in Tables 7 and 9
Based on results in Table 7 with the increase in con-sumer trust (the respondents were grouped in five differentways per their trust in the four organic labels as well asaverage trust e WTP for each type of organic label wasthen calculated for the different groups However only theWTP of respondents grouped by average trust (AVERAGE)are discussed in this paper Based on the survey data thecorrelation coefficients between the trust scores for thedifferent organic labels were all greater than 08 indicating apositive correlation between trust scores for each type oforganic label Although consumer trust varied among theorganic labels consumers with a higher trust in a certainorganic label were more inclined to trust the other threetypes of organic labels Our calculation results also showedno significant differences in WTP among the trust groupswhen the respondents were grouped as mentioned aboveGiven space limitations the calculation results for all groupsare not presented e same is true for the grouping ofrespondents by their trust in different certifiers) the order ofpreference for the organic labels remained the sameUSORGgtARORGgt JPORGgtCNORG Similarly the orderof preference for the certifiers remained the same
USCERTgtACACERTgtARCERTgtGOVCERT Howeverwith the increase in trust consumer WTP for each type oforganic label and certifier generally increased which cor-roborates previous research on consumer WTP for organicfood12 It is worth noting that in general the difference inWTP among organic labels decreased with the increase intrust For example according to Table 7 when consumertrust in organic labels increased from 1 to 7 the differencebetween their WTP for a US label and a Chinese labeldecreased fromUS$ 0932 to $ 0693 respectively ConsumerWTP for other labels showed a similar trend
Similarly the data in Table 9 indicate that the differencesin WTP among certifiers also decreased with the increase intrust (Table 9) Due to the frequent food safety incidents andscandals in China in recent years consumers in the low trustgroups had lower levels of trust in Chinese organic labels andcertifiers but relatively higher levels of trust in foreignorganic labels and foreign-invested certifiers thus resultingin greater differences in their WTP is suggests that anincrease in consumer trust in organic certification will helpto enhance WTP especially for Chinese organic labels andcertifiers
6 Conclusions and Limitations
61 Conclusions In this paper consumer WTP for organiclabels from different sources was examined using the choiceexperiment method and mixed logit model Furthermorethe impacts of consumer ethnocentrism and trust on con-sumer preferences were analyzed e main conclusions areas follows (1) Mean consumer trust in organic labels variedwith the country of origin e highest level of trust wasfound in US organic labels followed by Japanese Argentineand Chinese organic labels Consumer trust in certifiers alsosignificantly differed with the country of origin e highestlevel of trust was found in US-invested certifiers followed byChinese academic institution-supported Argentine-invested and Chinese government-supported certifiersand lastly in Chinese private certifiers (2) Consumer WTPvaried greatly among the organic labels e highest WTPwas expressed for US organic labels followed by Argentineand Japanese organic labels and lastly Chinese organic la-bels e order of WTP was not consistent with that ofconsumer trust mainly due to the relatively low WTP forJapanese organic labels Chinese consumers not only showedstrong preference for US organic labels but also the highest
Table 8 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay based on different levels of ethnocentrism
Level ETH 1 ETH 2 ETH 3 ETH 4 ETH 5 ETH 6 ETH 7USORG 1638lowastlowastlowast 1618lowastlowastlowast 1597lowastlowastlowast 1582lowastlowastlowast 1501lowastlowastlowast 1428lowastlowastlowast 1431lowastlowastlowastJPORG 1321lowastlowastlowast 1317lowastlowastlowast 1205lowastlowastlowast 1113lowastlowastlowast 0954lowastlowastlowast 0886lowastlowastlowast 0884lowastlowastlowastARORG 1129lowastlowastlowast 1125lowastlowastlowast 1125lowastlowastlowast 1121lowastlowastlowast 1003lowastlowastlowast 0922lowastlowastlowast 0829lowastlowastlowastCNORG 0685lowastlowastlowast 0698lowastlowastlowast 0738lowastlowastlowast 0754lowastlowastlowast 0893lowastlowastlowast 1029lowastlowastlowast 1253lowastlowastlowastUSCERT 1508lowastlowastlowast 1504lowastlowastlowast 1496lowastlowastlowast 1486lowastlowastlowast 1395lowastlowastlowast 1370lowastlowastlowast 1371lowastlowastlowastARCERT 1460lowastlowastlowast 1451lowastlowastlowast 1448lowastlowastlowast 1436lowastlowastlowast 1431lowastlowastlowast 1434lowastlowastlowast 1433lowastlowastlowastGOVCERT 1080lowastlowastlowast 1085lowastlowastlowast 1107lowastlowastlowast 1115lowastlowastlowast 1311lowastlowastlowast 1308lowastlowastlowast 1319lowastlowastlowastACACERT 0891lowastlowastlowast 0882lowastlowastlowast 0921lowastlowastlowast 0936lowastlowastlowast 1086lowastlowastlowast 1165lowastlowastlowast 1172lowastlowastlowastlowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowast denote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Variables LTRUST and CTRUST are held at the sample average level
10 Journal of Food Quality
WTP for US-invested certifiers followed by Chinese aca-demic institution-supported Argentine-invested and Chi-nese government-supported certifiersis is the same as theorder of mean trust in different certifiers (3) Certification oforganic labels from their respective countries improvedChinese consumer preferences In addition academicinstitution-supported certifier exhibited significantly posi-tive interactions with foreign organic labels (4) Chineseconsumers did not show high ethnocentrism Howeverthere was a considerable discrepancy in the order of pref-erence for the organic labels among the ETH levels With theincrease in consumer ethnocentrism consumers showed asubstantially lower WTP for Japanese organic labels and asignificantly higher WTP for Chinese organic labels Con-sumer WTP for certifiers did not change significantly withthe increase in ETH with a slight increase for Chinesecertifiers slight decrease for US-invested certifiers andstability for Argentine-invested certifiers (5) e order ofpreference for different organic labels and that for variouscertifiers did not change with the increase in consumer trustHowever consumer WTP for each type of organic labelgenerally increased with the increase in trust It is worthnoting that the differences in consumerWTP among organiclabels and among certifiers decreased with the increase intrust
Overall Chinese consumers showed different WTPs fororganic labels from different sources due to consumerethnocentrism and trustese conclusions should serve as avital basis for food suppliers in their selection of certificationservices and target market positioning Moreover this re-search can not only serve as a guidance for the reformationof the certification system and development of the certifiedfood market in China but also provide information toforeign certification service providers when entering theChinese market
62Limitations is study had the following limitations (1)Our research was conducted during the period when Sino-Japanese economic and trade relations had cooled due to theDiaoyu Islands dispute and other issues is historicalbackground inevitably affected consumer attitudes towardsJapanese products or services to varying degrees usconsumer WTP for Japanese organic labels should betracked over a longer period (2) Countries-of-origins werelimited to the US Japan Argentina and ChinaeWTPs ofChinese consumers for organic labels from other countriesregions such as Canada and Brazil need to be further in-vestigated (3) Consumer trust in different organic labels and
certifiers were examined separately however trust was notexamined in regards to a specific type of organic label from aspecific type of certifier such as a US organic label issued bya Chinese government-supported certifier which should beexamined in future research
Data Availability
e data used to support the findings of this study areavailable from the corresponding author upon request
Conflicts of Interest
e authors declare that there are no conflicts of interestregarding the publication of this article
Acknowledgments
is paper was supported by the study of evaluation of socialwelfare of quality and safety certification policy for agri-cultural products in the new era in China a project of theSocial Science Foundation of China (Approval no18BJY153)
References
[1] S J Yin R Li L H Wu and X J Chen Introduction to 2018China Development Report on Food Satety Peking UniversityPress Beijing China 2018
[2] M R Darby and E Karni ldquoFree competition and the optimalamount of fraudrdquo Journal of Law and Economics vol 16 no 1pp 67ndash88 1973
[3] F Albersmeier H Schulze and A Spiller ldquoSystem dynamicsin food quality certifications development of an audit in-tegrity systemrdquo International Journal of Food System Dy-namics vol 1 no 1 pp 69ndash81 2010
[4] E Golan F Kuchler L Mitchell C Greene and A JessupldquoEconomics of food labellingrdquo Journal of Consumer Policyvol 24 no 2 pp 117ndash184 2001
[5] M Janssen and U Hamm ldquoProduct labelling in the marketfor organic food consumer preferences and willingness-to-pay for different organic certification logosrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 25 no 1 pp 9ndash22 2012
[6] S J Yin Information Asymmetry Certification Effectivenessand Consumer Preferences An Case Study of Organic FoodChina Social Sciences Press Beijing China 2013
[7] L H Wu S J Yin Y J Xu and D Zhu ldquoEffectiveness ofChinarsquos organic food certification policy consumer prefer-ences for infant milk formula with different organic certifi-cation labelsrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevue canadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 62 no 4 pp 545ndash5682014
Table 9 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay for certifiers based on different levels of trust in certifiers
Certifiers CTRUST1 CTRUST 2 CTRUST 3 CTRUST 4 CTRUST 5 CTRUST 6 CTRUST 7USCERT 1473lowastlowastlowast (0521) 1481lowastlowastlowast (0499) 1521lowastlowastlowast (0532) 1632lowastlowastlowast (0578) 1669lowastlowastlowast (0592) 1717lowastlowastlowast (0623) 1785lowastlowastlowast (0637)ARCERT 0756lowastlowastlowast (0213) 0803lowastlowastlowast (0201) 0956lowastlowastlowast (0266) 1127lowastlowastlowast (0242) 1151lowastlowastlowast (0308) 1286lowastlowastlowast (0403) 1301lowastlowastlowast (0424)GOVCERT 0974lowastlowastlowast (0359) 1006lowastlowastlowast (0362) 1128lowastlowastlowast (0412) 1315lowastlowastlowast (0437) 1346lowastlowastlowast (0464) 1385lowastlowastlowast (0502) 1402lowastlowastlowast (0521)ACACERT 0713lowastlowastlowast (0245) 0721lowastlowastlowast (0257) 0974lowastlowastlowast (0291) 1102lowastlowastlowast (0286) 1142lowastlowastlowast (0331) 1213lowastlowastlowast (0392) 1291lowastlowastlowast (0378)lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Standard errors of consumersrsquoWTPs are reported within the brackets Consumerethnocentrism and trust in organic labels are held at the sample average level
Journal of Food Quality 11
[8] National Bureau of Statistics of China National StatisticalYearbook China Statistics Press Beijing China 2015
[9] FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations) FAO Statistical Yearbooks FAO Rome Italy 2016httpwwwfaoorgfaostatendata
[10] L Probst E Houedjofonon H M Ayerakwa and R HaasldquoWill they buy it e potential for marketing organic veg-etables in the food vending sector to strengthen vegetablesafety a choice experiment study in threeWest African citiesrdquoFood Policy vol 37 no 3 pp 296ndash308 2012
[11] V Falguera N Aliguer and M Falguera ldquoAn integratedapproach to current trends in food consumption movingtoward functional and organic productsrdquo Food Controlvol 26 no 2 pp 274ndash281 2012
[12] R D Liu Z Pieniak and W Verbeke ldquoConsumersrsquo attitudesand behaviour towards safe food in China a reviewrdquo FoodControl vol 33 no 1 pp 93ndash104 2013
[13] F Soler J M Gil andM Sanchez ldquoConsumer acceptability oforganic food in Spain results from an experimental auctionmarketrdquo British Food Journal vol 104 no 8 pp 670ndash6872002
[14] R B Tranter R M Bennett L Costa et al ldquoConsumersrsquowillingness-to-pay for organic conversion-grade food evi-dence from five EU countriesrdquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 287ndash294 2009
[15] S Rousseau and L Vranken ldquoGreen market expansion byreducing information asymmetries evidence for labeled or-ganic food productsrdquo Food Policy vol 40 no 2 pp 31ndash432013
[16] F Napolitano and A Braghieri ldquoEffect of information aboutorganic production on beef liking and consumer willingnessto payrdquo Food Quality and Preference vol 21 no 2pp 207ndash212 2010
[17] C Hempel and U Hamm ldquoHow important is local food toorganic-minded consumersrdquo Appetite vol 96 no 1pp 309ndash318 2016
[18] I Olesen F Alfnes M B Roslashra and K Kolstad ldquoElicitingconsumersrsquo willingness to pay for organic and welfare-labelledsalmon in a non-hypothetical choice experimentrdquo LivestockScience vol 127 no 2-3 pp 218ndash226 2010
[19] E J Van Loo V Caputo R M Nayga J F Meullenet andS C Ricke ldquoConsumer willingness to pay for organic chickenbreast evidence from choice experimentrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 22 no 7 pp 603ndash613 2011
[20] B Roitner-Schobesberger I Darnhofer S Somsook andC R Vogl ldquoConsumer perceptions of organic foods inBangkok ailandrdquo Food Policy vol 33 no 2 pp 112ndash1212008
[21] G Vittersoslash and T Tangeland ldquoe role of consumers intransitions towards sustainable food consumption the case oforganic food in Norwayrdquo Journal of Cleaner Productionvol 92 no 1 pp 91ndash99 2015
[22] S J Yin M Chen Y S Chen Y Xu Z Zou and YiqinWangldquoConsumer trust in organic milk of different brands the roleof Chinese organic labelrdquo British Food Journal vol 118 no 7pp 1769ndash1782 2016
[23] J L Hsu and H P Nien ldquoWho are ethnocentric Examiningconsumer ethnocentrism in Chinese societiesrdquo Journal ofConsumer Behaviour vol 7 no 6 pp 436ndash447 2008
[24] G Hustvedt K A Carroll and J C Bernard ldquoConsumerethnocentricity and preferences for wool products by countryof origin and manufacturerdquo International Journal of Con-sumer Studies vol 37 no 5 pp 498ndash506 2013
[25] T A Shimp and S Sharma ldquoConsumer ethnocentrismconstruction and validation of the CETSCALErdquo Journal ofMarketing Research vol 24 no 3 pp 280ndash289 1987
[26] L Yan and H He ldquoEvaluation of international brand alli-ances brand order and consumer ethnocentrismrdquo Journal ofBusiness Research vol 66 no 1 pp 89ndash97 2013
[27] K L Granzin and J J Painter ldquoMotivational influences onldquobuy domesticrdquo purchasing marketing management impli-cations from a study of two nationsrdquo Journal of InternationalMarketing vol 9 no 2 pp 73ndash96 2001
[28] J G Klein R Ettenson and M D Morris ldquoe animositymodel of foreign product purchase an empirical test in thePeoplersquos Republic of Chinardquo Journal of Marketing vol 62no 1 pp 89ndash100 1998
[29] F Liu J Murphy J Li and X Liu ldquoEnglish and Chinese therole of consumer ethnocentrism and country of origin inChinese attitudes towards store signsrdquo Australasian Mar-keting Journal vol 14 no 2 pp 5ndash16 2007
[30] M Raskovic Z Ding V Skare ETH O Dosen and V ZabkarldquoComparing consumer innovativeness and ethnocentrism ofyoung-adult consumersrdquo Journal of Business Research vol 69no 9 pp 3682ndash3686 2016
[31] J He and C L Wang ldquoCultural identity and consumerethnocentrism impacts on preference and purchase of do-mestic versus import brands an empirical study in ChinardquoJournal of Business Research vol 68 no 6 pp 1225ndash12332015
[32] W Helga and J Lernoud $e world of organic agriculturestatistics and emerging trends 2014 httporgprintsorg251721willer-lernoud-2014-world-of-organicpdf
[33] R M Dawes and B Corrigan ldquoLinear models in decisionmakingrdquo Psychological Bulletin vol 81 no 2 pp 95ndash1061974
[34] J J Louviere D A Hensher and J D Swait Stated ChoiceMethods Analysis and Applications Cambridge UniversityPress Cambridge UK 2000
[35] G J Zhuang N Zhou and L X Zhou ldquoNational-brandconsciousness brand characteristics and consumer prefer-ence for indigenous brandsrdquo Management World vol 21pp 85ndash94 2006
[36] E Delgado-Ballester and J L Munuera-Aleman ldquoBrand trustin the context of consumer loyaltyrdquo European Journal ofMarketing vol 35 no 11-12 pp 1238ndash1258 2001
[37] R Lassoued J E Hobbs E T Micheels and D D ZhangldquoConsumer trust in chicken brands a structural equationmodelrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevuecanadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 63 no 4 pp 621ndash647 2015
[38] K J Lancaster ldquoA new approach to consumer theoryrdquoJournal of Political Economy vol 74 no 2 pp 132ndash157 1966
[39] J S James B J Rickard and W J Rossman ldquoProduct dif-ferentiation and market segmentation in applesauce using achoice experiment to assess the value of organic local andnutrition attributesrdquo Agricultural and Resource EconomicsReview vol 38 no 3 pp 357ndash370 2009
[40] D McFadden and K Train ldquoMixed MNL models for discreteresponserdquo Journal of Applied Econometrics vol 15 no 5pp 447ndash470 2000
[41] A Claret L Guerrero E Aguirre et al ldquoConsumer prefer-ences for sea fish using conjoint analysis exploratory study ofthe importance of country of origin obtaining methodstorage conditions and purchasing pricerdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 26 no 2 pp 259ndash266 2012
12 Journal of Food Quality
[42] Y Y Cai and J X He ldquoJoy and peace an empirical study onthe effect of positive emotion on the country of originrdquoJournal of Marketing Science vol 8 pp 76ndash87 2012
[43] D Ubilava and K Foster ldquoQuality certification vs producttraceability consumer preferences for informational attri-butes of pork in Georgiardquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 305ndash310 2009
[44] J L Lusk J Roosen and J A Fox ldquoDemand for beef from cattleadministered growth hormones or fed genetically modifiedcorn a comparison of consumers in France Germany theUnited Kingdom and the United Statesrdquo American Journal ofAgricultural Economics vol 85 no 1 pp 16ndash29 2003
[45] A R Hole ldquoA comparison of approaches to estimatingconfidence intervals for willingness to pay measuresrdquo HealthEconomics vol 16 no 8 pp 827ndash840 2007
[46] R Alphonce and F Alfnes ldquoConsumer willingness to pay forfood safety in Tanzania an incentive-aligned conjoint anal-ysisrdquo International Journal of Consumer Studies vol 36 no 4pp 394ndash400 2012
[47] J L Lusk J Brown T Mark I Proseku R ompson andJ Welsh ldquoConsumer behavior public policy and country-of-origin labellingrdquo Review of Agricultural Economics vol 28no 2 pp 284ndash292 2006
Table 3 Sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents
Variables Categories Number of respondents Percentage of sample
Gender Female 480 5628Male 373 4372
Agea18ndash45 years 404 473946ndash60 years 294 3447gt60 years 155 1814
EducationbHigh education 260 3045
Medium education 340 3986Low education 253 2970
Family income (per year)clt8015US$ 264 3132
8015ndash16030US$ 358 4247gt16030US$ 221 2621
aAccording to the China Statistical Yearbook individuals aged 18ndash45 years are classified as young 46ndash60 years are classified as middle-aged and over the ageof 60 are classified as old Respondents were classified per the same criteria in this study e age structure of respondents was consistent with that of theChinese population reported in the China Statistical Yearbook as well as with that of Shandong Province reported in the Shandong Statistical YearbookbBased on the level of education in Mainland China as well as the criteria used in the China and Shandong Statistical Yearbooks low education denotesprimary school or lower medium education denotes junior high or high school and high education denotes university or higher e education level ofrespondents was consistent with that of urban residents in Shandong Province as reported in the Shandong Statistical Yearbook and slightly higher than thatof Chinese urban residents as reported in the China Statistical Yearbook cBased on the economic development and consumer income levels in MainlandChina an annual family income of less than 8015US$ is defined as low income 8015ndash16030US$ is defined as medium income and greater than 16030US$is defined as high income As this study aimed to understand the willingness of consumers to pay for organic food participants were recruited from urbansupermarkets and business districts e income level of the participants was slightly higher than the per capita income of the Chinese and Shandongpopulations reported in the China and Shandong Statistical Yearbooks respectively
Journal of Food Quality 7
Consumer ethnocentrism and trust variables were held atthe sample average level Attribute variables entered as in-teractions were held at minus1
As shown in Table 6 there were considerable differencesin consumer WTP for different organic labels e order ofconsumer preference for the organic labels was not con-sistent with that of consumer trust shown in Table 7 Amongthe four organic labels the highest WTP was expressed forUSORG (US$ 1589) followed by ARORG (US$ 1116)JPORG (US$ 1027) and lastly by CNORG (US$ 0729) Interms of WTP for different certifiers consumers had thehighest WTP for USCERT (US$ 1768) followed by ACA-CERT (US$ 1216) ARCERT (US$ 1042) and finallyGOVCERT (US$ 0837) is is the same as the order ofmean trust in different certifiers shown in Table 4
Consumers tend to assume that the US as a developedcountry has stricter food quality management and organiccertification supervision7 erefore a much higher WTPwas expressed for USORG and USCERT is agrees with
Table 6 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay measured at the sampleaverage level of ethnocentrism and trust
Attribute level Coef SE 95 CIUSORG 1589lowastlowastlowast 0529 [0552 2626]JPORG 1027lowastlowastlowast 0374 [0294 1760]ARORG 1116lowastlowastlowast 0286 [0555 1677]CNORG 0729lowastlowastlowast 0307 [0127 1331]USCERT 1768lowastlowastlowast 0299 [1182 2354]ARCERT 1042lowastlowastlowast 0304 [0446 1638]GOVCERT 0837lowastlowastlowast 0234 [0378 1296]ACACERT 1216lowastlowastlowast 0295 [0638 1794]lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively
8 Journal of Food Quality
studies on country-of-origin effects that products (or ser-vices) from developed countries are always more popularthan those from developing countries [42] Of note a muchlower WTP was expressed for organic labels from Japan adeveloped country and was even slightly lower than theWTP for organic labels from Argentina a developingcountry By contrast the mean trust in USORG and JPORGwas similar and much higher than that in ARORG orCNORG as shown in Table 7 e deviation between trustand WTP ie relatively low WTP for JPORG might bebased on several reasons First consumers might considerthat Japan an island country with a small territory doesnot have competitive advantages in agricultural pro-duction second it might be related to consumer ethno-centrism and the complex Sino-Japanese relationshipAnother surprising finding was that a relatively high WTPwas expressed for organic labels from Argentina a countrythat is relatively similar to China in economic developmentA possible reason is that Argentina is a large agriculturalcountry with a competitive advantage in agriculturalproduction and the second largest organic farmland area inthe world It is also a large developing country like Chinawhich might generate positive country-of-origin effects onthe products (or services) of Argentina As shown in Ta-ble 6 the lowest WTP was expressed for CNORG Incontrast Alphonce and Alfnes and Lusk et al argued thatconsumers have greater loyalty to their own country anddiscriminate against other countries to some extent[46 47] e possible reasons for this inconsistency are asfollows (1) Many Chinese consumers believe that agri-cultural science and technology and management levels inChina fall far behind those of developed countries withorganic certification no exception In addition someconsumers exhibit blind faith in foreign products which isa belief primarily based on purchase experience Con-sumers can believe that products from developed countriesare of a higher quality than those made in China even whenquality is the same [7] (2)e misuse and even falsificationof organic labels has jeopardized the development of thisemerging market in China (After inspecting the authen-ticity of organic certification in 2014 the Certification andAccreditation Administration of the PRC declared a re-markable misuse rate of 58 in certification labels Ofthem 50 were due to the prolonged use of certificates286 were suspected of lacking organic codes 143 weresuspected of using counterfeit organic codes and 71 didnot use certification labels as specified Source Sohu httpmtsohucom20160621n455577833shtml) Numerouscertification fraud incidents have occurred in recent years
e ldquoChongqing Wal-Mart green porkrdquo incident in 2011and the ldquoGuizhou organic Maotairdquo incident in 2013 bothimpacted the authority of Chinese food safety certificationand reduced consumer trust in Chinese organic labelsus consumers believe that the reliability of organic labelsfrom other developing countries such as Argentina ishigher than that of China
e WTP estimates for certifiers in Table 6 showed thatconsumers were willing to pay higher premiums forGOVCERT than PRICERT Janssen and Hamm found thatconsumers in some countries have a higher WTP forgovernment-certified labels than private ones whereas theopposite is true in other countries furthermore consumersin some countries do not show significantly different WTPbetween the two labels and consumer preferences for labelscan vary with the type of organic product [5]
54 Consumer Ethnocentrism and WTP for Organic FoodTo further examine the sensitivity of consumer WTP basedon different levels of ethnocentrism using the parametricbootstrapping technique outlined in Hole we calculatedWTP measures for each type of organic label and certifierbased on different levels of ETH [45] In this calculation thelevels of trust in labels (LTRUST) and trust in certifiers(CTRUST) were held at sample average while ETH wasallowed to change from 1 to 7 taking only integer valuesTable 8 shows the result
As seen in Table 8 there were considerable differences inthe order of preference for the organic labels among the ETHlevels e greatest difference was observed in their WTP forJapanese and Chinese organic labels When the level of ETH islow the order of WTP for organic labels from differentcountries was USORGgt JPORGgtARORGgtCNORG eirWTP for USORG and JPORG was much higher than that forARORG which was in turn much higher than that forCNORG With increases in ETH the WTP for USORG andARORG decreased especially for JPORG but the WTP forCNORG increased When the level of ETH is relatively highthere is a different WTP order for organic labels from differentcountries that is USORGgtCNORGgtARORGgt JPORGey showed amuch higherWTP for CNORG and although itwas lower than the WTP for USORG it was higher than thatfor ARORG and JPORG (which had the lowestWTP) Overallwith the increase in ETH consumers showed a lower WTP forforeign organic labels especially for those from Japan and asignificantly higher WTP for organic labels from China isindicated that ETH had a considerable impact on consumerpreferences
Table 7 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay for organic labels based on different levels of trust in organic labels
Label LTRUST1 LTRUST 2 LTRUST 3 LTRUST 4 LTRUST 5 LTRUST 6 LTRUST 7USORG 1531lowastlowastlowast (0583) 1511lowastlowastlowast (0579) 1576lowastlowastlowast (0548) 1588lowastlowastlowast (0573) 1592lowastlowastlowast (0566) 1607lowastlowastlowast (0602) 1608lowastlowastlowast (0598)JPORG 0903lowastlowastlowast (0341) 0923lowastlowastlowast (0349) 0955lowastlowastlowast (0362) 1056lowastlowastlowast (0359) 1109lowastlowastlowast (0403) 1111lowastlowastlowast (0412) 1114lowastlowastlowast (0409)ARORG 1112lowastlowastlowast (0409) 1108lowastlowastlowast (0396) 1134lowastlowastlowast (0421) 1197lowastlowastlowast (0430) 1211lowastlowastlowast (0462) 1257lowastlowastlowast (0473) 1266lowastlowastlowast (0471)CNORG 0599lowastlowastlowast (0212) 0605lowastlowastlowast (0227) 0710lowastlowastlowast (0221) 0715lowastlowastlowast (0247) 0813lowastlowastlowast (0289) 0907lowastlowastlowast (0301) 0915lowastlowastlowast (0315)lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Standard errors of consumerWTPs are reported within the brackets Consumerethnocentrism and trust in certifiers are held at the sample average level
Journal of Food Quality 9
Table 8 also shows that with the increase in ETHconsumer WTP slightly increased for Chinese certifiersslightly decreased for USCERT and remained substantiallyunchanged for ARCERT Moreover the order of preferencesfor certifiers remains unchanged is indicated that thepreferences of Chinese consumers for domestic and foreigncertifiers were not affected by ethnocentrism to any greatextent Since its reformation the Chinese government hasgenerally adopted a policy of encouraging direct foreigninvestment In this context Chinese consumers have alsowelcomed direct foreign investment and view its contributionto domestic employment and economic growth positivelyHowever this speculation needs further verification
55 Trust Effects on Preferences and WTP For a similarreason WTP measured at different levels of trust for eachtype of organic label and certifier was calculated whileallowing the trust measures to change from 1 to 7 takingevery integer values in between When calculating the im-pact of trust in organic labels (LTRUST) consumer eth-nocentrism (ETH) and trust in certifiers (CTRUST) wereheld at sample average Variables ETH and LTRUST wereheld at the sample average while calculating the impact ofCTRUST e results are shown in Tables 7 and 9
Based on results in Table 7 with the increase in con-sumer trust (the respondents were grouped in five differentways per their trust in the four organic labels as well asaverage trust e WTP for each type of organic label wasthen calculated for the different groups However only theWTP of respondents grouped by average trust (AVERAGE)are discussed in this paper Based on the survey data thecorrelation coefficients between the trust scores for thedifferent organic labels were all greater than 08 indicating apositive correlation between trust scores for each type oforganic label Although consumer trust varied among theorganic labels consumers with a higher trust in a certainorganic label were more inclined to trust the other threetypes of organic labels Our calculation results also showedno significant differences in WTP among the trust groupswhen the respondents were grouped as mentioned aboveGiven space limitations the calculation results for all groupsare not presented e same is true for the grouping ofrespondents by their trust in different certifiers) the order ofpreference for the organic labels remained the sameUSORGgtARORGgt JPORGgtCNORG Similarly the orderof preference for the certifiers remained the same
USCERTgtACACERTgtARCERTgtGOVCERT Howeverwith the increase in trust consumer WTP for each type oforganic label and certifier generally increased which cor-roborates previous research on consumer WTP for organicfood12 It is worth noting that in general the difference inWTP among organic labels decreased with the increase intrust For example according to Table 7 when consumertrust in organic labels increased from 1 to 7 the differencebetween their WTP for a US label and a Chinese labeldecreased fromUS$ 0932 to $ 0693 respectively ConsumerWTP for other labels showed a similar trend
Similarly the data in Table 9 indicate that the differencesin WTP among certifiers also decreased with the increase intrust (Table 9) Due to the frequent food safety incidents andscandals in China in recent years consumers in the low trustgroups had lower levels of trust in Chinese organic labels andcertifiers but relatively higher levels of trust in foreignorganic labels and foreign-invested certifiers thus resultingin greater differences in their WTP is suggests that anincrease in consumer trust in organic certification will helpto enhance WTP especially for Chinese organic labels andcertifiers
6 Conclusions and Limitations
61 Conclusions In this paper consumer WTP for organiclabels from different sources was examined using the choiceexperiment method and mixed logit model Furthermorethe impacts of consumer ethnocentrism and trust on con-sumer preferences were analyzed e main conclusions areas follows (1) Mean consumer trust in organic labels variedwith the country of origin e highest level of trust wasfound in US organic labels followed by Japanese Argentineand Chinese organic labels Consumer trust in certifiers alsosignificantly differed with the country of origin e highestlevel of trust was found in US-invested certifiers followed byChinese academic institution-supported Argentine-invested and Chinese government-supported certifiersand lastly in Chinese private certifiers (2) Consumer WTPvaried greatly among the organic labels e highest WTPwas expressed for US organic labels followed by Argentineand Japanese organic labels and lastly Chinese organic la-bels e order of WTP was not consistent with that ofconsumer trust mainly due to the relatively low WTP forJapanese organic labels Chinese consumers not only showedstrong preference for US organic labels but also the highest
Table 8 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay based on different levels of ethnocentrism
Level ETH 1 ETH 2 ETH 3 ETH 4 ETH 5 ETH 6 ETH 7USORG 1638lowastlowastlowast 1618lowastlowastlowast 1597lowastlowastlowast 1582lowastlowastlowast 1501lowastlowastlowast 1428lowastlowastlowast 1431lowastlowastlowastJPORG 1321lowastlowastlowast 1317lowastlowastlowast 1205lowastlowastlowast 1113lowastlowastlowast 0954lowastlowastlowast 0886lowastlowastlowast 0884lowastlowastlowastARORG 1129lowastlowastlowast 1125lowastlowastlowast 1125lowastlowastlowast 1121lowastlowastlowast 1003lowastlowastlowast 0922lowastlowastlowast 0829lowastlowastlowastCNORG 0685lowastlowastlowast 0698lowastlowastlowast 0738lowastlowastlowast 0754lowastlowastlowast 0893lowastlowastlowast 1029lowastlowastlowast 1253lowastlowastlowastUSCERT 1508lowastlowastlowast 1504lowastlowastlowast 1496lowastlowastlowast 1486lowastlowastlowast 1395lowastlowastlowast 1370lowastlowastlowast 1371lowastlowastlowastARCERT 1460lowastlowastlowast 1451lowastlowastlowast 1448lowastlowastlowast 1436lowastlowastlowast 1431lowastlowastlowast 1434lowastlowastlowast 1433lowastlowastlowastGOVCERT 1080lowastlowastlowast 1085lowastlowastlowast 1107lowastlowastlowast 1115lowastlowastlowast 1311lowastlowastlowast 1308lowastlowastlowast 1319lowastlowastlowastACACERT 0891lowastlowastlowast 0882lowastlowastlowast 0921lowastlowastlowast 0936lowastlowastlowast 1086lowastlowastlowast 1165lowastlowastlowast 1172lowastlowastlowastlowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowast denote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Variables LTRUST and CTRUST are held at the sample average level
10 Journal of Food Quality
WTP for US-invested certifiers followed by Chinese aca-demic institution-supported Argentine-invested and Chi-nese government-supported certifiersis is the same as theorder of mean trust in different certifiers (3) Certification oforganic labels from their respective countries improvedChinese consumer preferences In addition academicinstitution-supported certifier exhibited significantly posi-tive interactions with foreign organic labels (4) Chineseconsumers did not show high ethnocentrism Howeverthere was a considerable discrepancy in the order of pref-erence for the organic labels among the ETH levels With theincrease in consumer ethnocentrism consumers showed asubstantially lower WTP for Japanese organic labels and asignificantly higher WTP for Chinese organic labels Con-sumer WTP for certifiers did not change significantly withthe increase in ETH with a slight increase for Chinesecertifiers slight decrease for US-invested certifiers andstability for Argentine-invested certifiers (5) e order ofpreference for different organic labels and that for variouscertifiers did not change with the increase in consumer trustHowever consumer WTP for each type of organic labelgenerally increased with the increase in trust It is worthnoting that the differences in consumerWTP among organiclabels and among certifiers decreased with the increase intrust
Overall Chinese consumers showed different WTPs fororganic labels from different sources due to consumerethnocentrism and trustese conclusions should serve as avital basis for food suppliers in their selection of certificationservices and target market positioning Moreover this re-search can not only serve as a guidance for the reformationof the certification system and development of the certifiedfood market in China but also provide information toforeign certification service providers when entering theChinese market
62Limitations is study had the following limitations (1)Our research was conducted during the period when Sino-Japanese economic and trade relations had cooled due to theDiaoyu Islands dispute and other issues is historicalbackground inevitably affected consumer attitudes towardsJapanese products or services to varying degrees usconsumer WTP for Japanese organic labels should betracked over a longer period (2) Countries-of-origins werelimited to the US Japan Argentina and ChinaeWTPs ofChinese consumers for organic labels from other countriesregions such as Canada and Brazil need to be further in-vestigated (3) Consumer trust in different organic labels and
certifiers were examined separately however trust was notexamined in regards to a specific type of organic label from aspecific type of certifier such as a US organic label issued bya Chinese government-supported certifier which should beexamined in future research
Data Availability
e data used to support the findings of this study areavailable from the corresponding author upon request
Conflicts of Interest
e authors declare that there are no conflicts of interestregarding the publication of this article
Acknowledgments
is paper was supported by the study of evaluation of socialwelfare of quality and safety certification policy for agri-cultural products in the new era in China a project of theSocial Science Foundation of China (Approval no18BJY153)
References
[1] S J Yin R Li L H Wu and X J Chen Introduction to 2018China Development Report on Food Satety Peking UniversityPress Beijing China 2018
[2] M R Darby and E Karni ldquoFree competition and the optimalamount of fraudrdquo Journal of Law and Economics vol 16 no 1pp 67ndash88 1973
[3] F Albersmeier H Schulze and A Spiller ldquoSystem dynamicsin food quality certifications development of an audit in-tegrity systemrdquo International Journal of Food System Dy-namics vol 1 no 1 pp 69ndash81 2010
[4] E Golan F Kuchler L Mitchell C Greene and A JessupldquoEconomics of food labellingrdquo Journal of Consumer Policyvol 24 no 2 pp 117ndash184 2001
[5] M Janssen and U Hamm ldquoProduct labelling in the marketfor organic food consumer preferences and willingness-to-pay for different organic certification logosrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 25 no 1 pp 9ndash22 2012
[6] S J Yin Information Asymmetry Certification Effectivenessand Consumer Preferences An Case Study of Organic FoodChina Social Sciences Press Beijing China 2013
[7] L H Wu S J Yin Y J Xu and D Zhu ldquoEffectiveness ofChinarsquos organic food certification policy consumer prefer-ences for infant milk formula with different organic certifi-cation labelsrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevue canadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 62 no 4 pp 545ndash5682014
Table 9 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay for certifiers based on different levels of trust in certifiers
Certifiers CTRUST1 CTRUST 2 CTRUST 3 CTRUST 4 CTRUST 5 CTRUST 6 CTRUST 7USCERT 1473lowastlowastlowast (0521) 1481lowastlowastlowast (0499) 1521lowastlowastlowast (0532) 1632lowastlowastlowast (0578) 1669lowastlowastlowast (0592) 1717lowastlowastlowast (0623) 1785lowastlowastlowast (0637)ARCERT 0756lowastlowastlowast (0213) 0803lowastlowastlowast (0201) 0956lowastlowastlowast (0266) 1127lowastlowastlowast (0242) 1151lowastlowastlowast (0308) 1286lowastlowastlowast (0403) 1301lowastlowastlowast (0424)GOVCERT 0974lowastlowastlowast (0359) 1006lowastlowastlowast (0362) 1128lowastlowastlowast (0412) 1315lowastlowastlowast (0437) 1346lowastlowastlowast (0464) 1385lowastlowastlowast (0502) 1402lowastlowastlowast (0521)ACACERT 0713lowastlowastlowast (0245) 0721lowastlowastlowast (0257) 0974lowastlowastlowast (0291) 1102lowastlowastlowast (0286) 1142lowastlowastlowast (0331) 1213lowastlowastlowast (0392) 1291lowastlowastlowast (0378)lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Standard errors of consumersrsquoWTPs are reported within the brackets Consumerethnocentrism and trust in organic labels are held at the sample average level
Journal of Food Quality 11
[8] National Bureau of Statistics of China National StatisticalYearbook China Statistics Press Beijing China 2015
[9] FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations) FAO Statistical Yearbooks FAO Rome Italy 2016httpwwwfaoorgfaostatendata
[10] L Probst E Houedjofonon H M Ayerakwa and R HaasldquoWill they buy it e potential for marketing organic veg-etables in the food vending sector to strengthen vegetablesafety a choice experiment study in threeWest African citiesrdquoFood Policy vol 37 no 3 pp 296ndash308 2012
[11] V Falguera N Aliguer and M Falguera ldquoAn integratedapproach to current trends in food consumption movingtoward functional and organic productsrdquo Food Controlvol 26 no 2 pp 274ndash281 2012
[12] R D Liu Z Pieniak and W Verbeke ldquoConsumersrsquo attitudesand behaviour towards safe food in China a reviewrdquo FoodControl vol 33 no 1 pp 93ndash104 2013
[13] F Soler J M Gil andM Sanchez ldquoConsumer acceptability oforganic food in Spain results from an experimental auctionmarketrdquo British Food Journal vol 104 no 8 pp 670ndash6872002
[14] R B Tranter R M Bennett L Costa et al ldquoConsumersrsquowillingness-to-pay for organic conversion-grade food evi-dence from five EU countriesrdquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 287ndash294 2009
[15] S Rousseau and L Vranken ldquoGreen market expansion byreducing information asymmetries evidence for labeled or-ganic food productsrdquo Food Policy vol 40 no 2 pp 31ndash432013
[16] F Napolitano and A Braghieri ldquoEffect of information aboutorganic production on beef liking and consumer willingnessto payrdquo Food Quality and Preference vol 21 no 2pp 207ndash212 2010
[17] C Hempel and U Hamm ldquoHow important is local food toorganic-minded consumersrdquo Appetite vol 96 no 1pp 309ndash318 2016
[18] I Olesen F Alfnes M B Roslashra and K Kolstad ldquoElicitingconsumersrsquo willingness to pay for organic and welfare-labelledsalmon in a non-hypothetical choice experimentrdquo LivestockScience vol 127 no 2-3 pp 218ndash226 2010
[19] E J Van Loo V Caputo R M Nayga J F Meullenet andS C Ricke ldquoConsumer willingness to pay for organic chickenbreast evidence from choice experimentrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 22 no 7 pp 603ndash613 2011
[20] B Roitner-Schobesberger I Darnhofer S Somsook andC R Vogl ldquoConsumer perceptions of organic foods inBangkok ailandrdquo Food Policy vol 33 no 2 pp 112ndash1212008
[21] G Vittersoslash and T Tangeland ldquoe role of consumers intransitions towards sustainable food consumption the case oforganic food in Norwayrdquo Journal of Cleaner Productionvol 92 no 1 pp 91ndash99 2015
[22] S J Yin M Chen Y S Chen Y Xu Z Zou and YiqinWangldquoConsumer trust in organic milk of different brands the roleof Chinese organic labelrdquo British Food Journal vol 118 no 7pp 1769ndash1782 2016
[23] J L Hsu and H P Nien ldquoWho are ethnocentric Examiningconsumer ethnocentrism in Chinese societiesrdquo Journal ofConsumer Behaviour vol 7 no 6 pp 436ndash447 2008
[24] G Hustvedt K A Carroll and J C Bernard ldquoConsumerethnocentricity and preferences for wool products by countryof origin and manufacturerdquo International Journal of Con-sumer Studies vol 37 no 5 pp 498ndash506 2013
[25] T A Shimp and S Sharma ldquoConsumer ethnocentrismconstruction and validation of the CETSCALErdquo Journal ofMarketing Research vol 24 no 3 pp 280ndash289 1987
[26] L Yan and H He ldquoEvaluation of international brand alli-ances brand order and consumer ethnocentrismrdquo Journal ofBusiness Research vol 66 no 1 pp 89ndash97 2013
[27] K L Granzin and J J Painter ldquoMotivational influences onldquobuy domesticrdquo purchasing marketing management impli-cations from a study of two nationsrdquo Journal of InternationalMarketing vol 9 no 2 pp 73ndash96 2001
[28] J G Klein R Ettenson and M D Morris ldquoe animositymodel of foreign product purchase an empirical test in thePeoplersquos Republic of Chinardquo Journal of Marketing vol 62no 1 pp 89ndash100 1998
[29] F Liu J Murphy J Li and X Liu ldquoEnglish and Chinese therole of consumer ethnocentrism and country of origin inChinese attitudes towards store signsrdquo Australasian Mar-keting Journal vol 14 no 2 pp 5ndash16 2007
[30] M Raskovic Z Ding V Skare ETH O Dosen and V ZabkarldquoComparing consumer innovativeness and ethnocentrism ofyoung-adult consumersrdquo Journal of Business Research vol 69no 9 pp 3682ndash3686 2016
[31] J He and C L Wang ldquoCultural identity and consumerethnocentrism impacts on preference and purchase of do-mestic versus import brands an empirical study in ChinardquoJournal of Business Research vol 68 no 6 pp 1225ndash12332015
[32] W Helga and J Lernoud $e world of organic agriculturestatistics and emerging trends 2014 httporgprintsorg251721willer-lernoud-2014-world-of-organicpdf
[33] R M Dawes and B Corrigan ldquoLinear models in decisionmakingrdquo Psychological Bulletin vol 81 no 2 pp 95ndash1061974
[34] J J Louviere D A Hensher and J D Swait Stated ChoiceMethods Analysis and Applications Cambridge UniversityPress Cambridge UK 2000
[35] G J Zhuang N Zhou and L X Zhou ldquoNational-brandconsciousness brand characteristics and consumer prefer-ence for indigenous brandsrdquo Management World vol 21pp 85ndash94 2006
[36] E Delgado-Ballester and J L Munuera-Aleman ldquoBrand trustin the context of consumer loyaltyrdquo European Journal ofMarketing vol 35 no 11-12 pp 1238ndash1258 2001
[37] R Lassoued J E Hobbs E T Micheels and D D ZhangldquoConsumer trust in chicken brands a structural equationmodelrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevuecanadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 63 no 4 pp 621ndash647 2015
[38] K J Lancaster ldquoA new approach to consumer theoryrdquoJournal of Political Economy vol 74 no 2 pp 132ndash157 1966
[39] J S James B J Rickard and W J Rossman ldquoProduct dif-ferentiation and market segmentation in applesauce using achoice experiment to assess the value of organic local andnutrition attributesrdquo Agricultural and Resource EconomicsReview vol 38 no 3 pp 357ndash370 2009
[40] D McFadden and K Train ldquoMixed MNL models for discreteresponserdquo Journal of Applied Econometrics vol 15 no 5pp 447ndash470 2000
[41] A Claret L Guerrero E Aguirre et al ldquoConsumer prefer-ences for sea fish using conjoint analysis exploratory study ofthe importance of country of origin obtaining methodstorage conditions and purchasing pricerdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 26 no 2 pp 259ndash266 2012
12 Journal of Food Quality
[42] Y Y Cai and J X He ldquoJoy and peace an empirical study onthe effect of positive emotion on the country of originrdquoJournal of Marketing Science vol 8 pp 76ndash87 2012
[43] D Ubilava and K Foster ldquoQuality certification vs producttraceability consumer preferences for informational attri-butes of pork in Georgiardquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 305ndash310 2009
[44] J L Lusk J Roosen and J A Fox ldquoDemand for beef from cattleadministered growth hormones or fed genetically modifiedcorn a comparison of consumers in France Germany theUnited Kingdom and the United Statesrdquo American Journal ofAgricultural Economics vol 85 no 1 pp 16ndash29 2003
[45] A R Hole ldquoA comparison of approaches to estimatingconfidence intervals for willingness to pay measuresrdquo HealthEconomics vol 16 no 8 pp 827ndash840 2007
[46] R Alphonce and F Alfnes ldquoConsumer willingness to pay forfood safety in Tanzania an incentive-aligned conjoint anal-ysisrdquo International Journal of Consumer Studies vol 36 no 4pp 394ndash400 2012
[47] J L Lusk J Brown T Mark I Proseku R ompson andJ Welsh ldquoConsumer behavior public policy and country-of-origin labellingrdquo Review of Agricultural Economics vol 28no 2 pp 284ndash292 2006
Consumer ethnocentrism and trust variables were held atthe sample average level Attribute variables entered as in-teractions were held at minus1
As shown in Table 6 there were considerable differencesin consumer WTP for different organic labels e order ofconsumer preference for the organic labels was not con-sistent with that of consumer trust shown in Table 7 Amongthe four organic labels the highest WTP was expressed forUSORG (US$ 1589) followed by ARORG (US$ 1116)JPORG (US$ 1027) and lastly by CNORG (US$ 0729) Interms of WTP for different certifiers consumers had thehighest WTP for USCERT (US$ 1768) followed by ACA-CERT (US$ 1216) ARCERT (US$ 1042) and finallyGOVCERT (US$ 0837) is is the same as the order ofmean trust in different certifiers shown in Table 4
Consumers tend to assume that the US as a developedcountry has stricter food quality management and organiccertification supervision7 erefore a much higher WTPwas expressed for USORG and USCERT is agrees with
Table 6 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay measured at the sampleaverage level of ethnocentrism and trust
Attribute level Coef SE 95 CIUSORG 1589lowastlowastlowast 0529 [0552 2626]JPORG 1027lowastlowastlowast 0374 [0294 1760]ARORG 1116lowastlowastlowast 0286 [0555 1677]CNORG 0729lowastlowastlowast 0307 [0127 1331]USCERT 1768lowastlowastlowast 0299 [1182 2354]ARCERT 1042lowastlowastlowast 0304 [0446 1638]GOVCERT 0837lowastlowastlowast 0234 [0378 1296]ACACERT 1216lowastlowastlowast 0295 [0638 1794]lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively
8 Journal of Food Quality
studies on country-of-origin effects that products (or ser-vices) from developed countries are always more popularthan those from developing countries [42] Of note a muchlower WTP was expressed for organic labels from Japan adeveloped country and was even slightly lower than theWTP for organic labels from Argentina a developingcountry By contrast the mean trust in USORG and JPORGwas similar and much higher than that in ARORG orCNORG as shown in Table 7 e deviation between trustand WTP ie relatively low WTP for JPORG might bebased on several reasons First consumers might considerthat Japan an island country with a small territory doesnot have competitive advantages in agricultural pro-duction second it might be related to consumer ethno-centrism and the complex Sino-Japanese relationshipAnother surprising finding was that a relatively high WTPwas expressed for organic labels from Argentina a countrythat is relatively similar to China in economic developmentA possible reason is that Argentina is a large agriculturalcountry with a competitive advantage in agriculturalproduction and the second largest organic farmland area inthe world It is also a large developing country like Chinawhich might generate positive country-of-origin effects onthe products (or services) of Argentina As shown in Ta-ble 6 the lowest WTP was expressed for CNORG Incontrast Alphonce and Alfnes and Lusk et al argued thatconsumers have greater loyalty to their own country anddiscriminate against other countries to some extent[46 47] e possible reasons for this inconsistency are asfollows (1) Many Chinese consumers believe that agri-cultural science and technology and management levels inChina fall far behind those of developed countries withorganic certification no exception In addition someconsumers exhibit blind faith in foreign products which isa belief primarily based on purchase experience Con-sumers can believe that products from developed countriesare of a higher quality than those made in China even whenquality is the same [7] (2)e misuse and even falsificationof organic labels has jeopardized the development of thisemerging market in China (After inspecting the authen-ticity of organic certification in 2014 the Certification andAccreditation Administration of the PRC declared a re-markable misuse rate of 58 in certification labels Ofthem 50 were due to the prolonged use of certificates286 were suspected of lacking organic codes 143 weresuspected of using counterfeit organic codes and 71 didnot use certification labels as specified Source Sohu httpmtsohucom20160621n455577833shtml) Numerouscertification fraud incidents have occurred in recent years
e ldquoChongqing Wal-Mart green porkrdquo incident in 2011and the ldquoGuizhou organic Maotairdquo incident in 2013 bothimpacted the authority of Chinese food safety certificationand reduced consumer trust in Chinese organic labelsus consumers believe that the reliability of organic labelsfrom other developing countries such as Argentina ishigher than that of China
e WTP estimates for certifiers in Table 6 showed thatconsumers were willing to pay higher premiums forGOVCERT than PRICERT Janssen and Hamm found thatconsumers in some countries have a higher WTP forgovernment-certified labels than private ones whereas theopposite is true in other countries furthermore consumersin some countries do not show significantly different WTPbetween the two labels and consumer preferences for labelscan vary with the type of organic product [5]
54 Consumer Ethnocentrism and WTP for Organic FoodTo further examine the sensitivity of consumer WTP basedon different levels of ethnocentrism using the parametricbootstrapping technique outlined in Hole we calculatedWTP measures for each type of organic label and certifierbased on different levels of ETH [45] In this calculation thelevels of trust in labels (LTRUST) and trust in certifiers(CTRUST) were held at sample average while ETH wasallowed to change from 1 to 7 taking only integer valuesTable 8 shows the result
As seen in Table 8 there were considerable differences inthe order of preference for the organic labels among the ETHlevels e greatest difference was observed in their WTP forJapanese and Chinese organic labels When the level of ETH islow the order of WTP for organic labels from differentcountries was USORGgt JPORGgtARORGgtCNORG eirWTP for USORG and JPORG was much higher than that forARORG which was in turn much higher than that forCNORG With increases in ETH the WTP for USORG andARORG decreased especially for JPORG but the WTP forCNORG increased When the level of ETH is relatively highthere is a different WTP order for organic labels from differentcountries that is USORGgtCNORGgtARORGgt JPORGey showed amuch higherWTP for CNORG and although itwas lower than the WTP for USORG it was higher than thatfor ARORG and JPORG (which had the lowestWTP) Overallwith the increase in ETH consumers showed a lower WTP forforeign organic labels especially for those from Japan and asignificantly higher WTP for organic labels from China isindicated that ETH had a considerable impact on consumerpreferences
Table 7 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay for organic labels based on different levels of trust in organic labels
Label LTRUST1 LTRUST 2 LTRUST 3 LTRUST 4 LTRUST 5 LTRUST 6 LTRUST 7USORG 1531lowastlowastlowast (0583) 1511lowastlowastlowast (0579) 1576lowastlowastlowast (0548) 1588lowastlowastlowast (0573) 1592lowastlowastlowast (0566) 1607lowastlowastlowast (0602) 1608lowastlowastlowast (0598)JPORG 0903lowastlowastlowast (0341) 0923lowastlowastlowast (0349) 0955lowastlowastlowast (0362) 1056lowastlowastlowast (0359) 1109lowastlowastlowast (0403) 1111lowastlowastlowast (0412) 1114lowastlowastlowast (0409)ARORG 1112lowastlowastlowast (0409) 1108lowastlowastlowast (0396) 1134lowastlowastlowast (0421) 1197lowastlowastlowast (0430) 1211lowastlowastlowast (0462) 1257lowastlowastlowast (0473) 1266lowastlowastlowast (0471)CNORG 0599lowastlowastlowast (0212) 0605lowastlowastlowast (0227) 0710lowastlowastlowast (0221) 0715lowastlowastlowast (0247) 0813lowastlowastlowast (0289) 0907lowastlowastlowast (0301) 0915lowastlowastlowast (0315)lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Standard errors of consumerWTPs are reported within the brackets Consumerethnocentrism and trust in certifiers are held at the sample average level
Journal of Food Quality 9
Table 8 also shows that with the increase in ETHconsumer WTP slightly increased for Chinese certifiersslightly decreased for USCERT and remained substantiallyunchanged for ARCERT Moreover the order of preferencesfor certifiers remains unchanged is indicated that thepreferences of Chinese consumers for domestic and foreigncertifiers were not affected by ethnocentrism to any greatextent Since its reformation the Chinese government hasgenerally adopted a policy of encouraging direct foreigninvestment In this context Chinese consumers have alsowelcomed direct foreign investment and view its contributionto domestic employment and economic growth positivelyHowever this speculation needs further verification
55 Trust Effects on Preferences and WTP For a similarreason WTP measured at different levels of trust for eachtype of organic label and certifier was calculated whileallowing the trust measures to change from 1 to 7 takingevery integer values in between When calculating the im-pact of trust in organic labels (LTRUST) consumer eth-nocentrism (ETH) and trust in certifiers (CTRUST) wereheld at sample average Variables ETH and LTRUST wereheld at the sample average while calculating the impact ofCTRUST e results are shown in Tables 7 and 9
Based on results in Table 7 with the increase in con-sumer trust (the respondents were grouped in five differentways per their trust in the four organic labels as well asaverage trust e WTP for each type of organic label wasthen calculated for the different groups However only theWTP of respondents grouped by average trust (AVERAGE)are discussed in this paper Based on the survey data thecorrelation coefficients between the trust scores for thedifferent organic labels were all greater than 08 indicating apositive correlation between trust scores for each type oforganic label Although consumer trust varied among theorganic labels consumers with a higher trust in a certainorganic label were more inclined to trust the other threetypes of organic labels Our calculation results also showedno significant differences in WTP among the trust groupswhen the respondents were grouped as mentioned aboveGiven space limitations the calculation results for all groupsare not presented e same is true for the grouping ofrespondents by their trust in different certifiers) the order ofpreference for the organic labels remained the sameUSORGgtARORGgt JPORGgtCNORG Similarly the orderof preference for the certifiers remained the same
USCERTgtACACERTgtARCERTgtGOVCERT Howeverwith the increase in trust consumer WTP for each type oforganic label and certifier generally increased which cor-roborates previous research on consumer WTP for organicfood12 It is worth noting that in general the difference inWTP among organic labels decreased with the increase intrust For example according to Table 7 when consumertrust in organic labels increased from 1 to 7 the differencebetween their WTP for a US label and a Chinese labeldecreased fromUS$ 0932 to $ 0693 respectively ConsumerWTP for other labels showed a similar trend
Similarly the data in Table 9 indicate that the differencesin WTP among certifiers also decreased with the increase intrust (Table 9) Due to the frequent food safety incidents andscandals in China in recent years consumers in the low trustgroups had lower levels of trust in Chinese organic labels andcertifiers but relatively higher levels of trust in foreignorganic labels and foreign-invested certifiers thus resultingin greater differences in their WTP is suggests that anincrease in consumer trust in organic certification will helpto enhance WTP especially for Chinese organic labels andcertifiers
6 Conclusions and Limitations
61 Conclusions In this paper consumer WTP for organiclabels from different sources was examined using the choiceexperiment method and mixed logit model Furthermorethe impacts of consumer ethnocentrism and trust on con-sumer preferences were analyzed e main conclusions areas follows (1) Mean consumer trust in organic labels variedwith the country of origin e highest level of trust wasfound in US organic labels followed by Japanese Argentineand Chinese organic labels Consumer trust in certifiers alsosignificantly differed with the country of origin e highestlevel of trust was found in US-invested certifiers followed byChinese academic institution-supported Argentine-invested and Chinese government-supported certifiersand lastly in Chinese private certifiers (2) Consumer WTPvaried greatly among the organic labels e highest WTPwas expressed for US organic labels followed by Argentineand Japanese organic labels and lastly Chinese organic la-bels e order of WTP was not consistent with that ofconsumer trust mainly due to the relatively low WTP forJapanese organic labels Chinese consumers not only showedstrong preference for US organic labels but also the highest
Table 8 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay based on different levels of ethnocentrism
Level ETH 1 ETH 2 ETH 3 ETH 4 ETH 5 ETH 6 ETH 7USORG 1638lowastlowastlowast 1618lowastlowastlowast 1597lowastlowastlowast 1582lowastlowastlowast 1501lowastlowastlowast 1428lowastlowastlowast 1431lowastlowastlowastJPORG 1321lowastlowastlowast 1317lowastlowastlowast 1205lowastlowastlowast 1113lowastlowastlowast 0954lowastlowastlowast 0886lowastlowastlowast 0884lowastlowastlowastARORG 1129lowastlowastlowast 1125lowastlowastlowast 1125lowastlowastlowast 1121lowastlowastlowast 1003lowastlowastlowast 0922lowastlowastlowast 0829lowastlowastlowastCNORG 0685lowastlowastlowast 0698lowastlowastlowast 0738lowastlowastlowast 0754lowastlowastlowast 0893lowastlowastlowast 1029lowastlowastlowast 1253lowastlowastlowastUSCERT 1508lowastlowastlowast 1504lowastlowastlowast 1496lowastlowastlowast 1486lowastlowastlowast 1395lowastlowastlowast 1370lowastlowastlowast 1371lowastlowastlowastARCERT 1460lowastlowastlowast 1451lowastlowastlowast 1448lowastlowastlowast 1436lowastlowastlowast 1431lowastlowastlowast 1434lowastlowastlowast 1433lowastlowastlowastGOVCERT 1080lowastlowastlowast 1085lowastlowastlowast 1107lowastlowastlowast 1115lowastlowastlowast 1311lowastlowastlowast 1308lowastlowastlowast 1319lowastlowastlowastACACERT 0891lowastlowastlowast 0882lowastlowastlowast 0921lowastlowastlowast 0936lowastlowastlowast 1086lowastlowastlowast 1165lowastlowastlowast 1172lowastlowastlowastlowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowast denote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Variables LTRUST and CTRUST are held at the sample average level
10 Journal of Food Quality
WTP for US-invested certifiers followed by Chinese aca-demic institution-supported Argentine-invested and Chi-nese government-supported certifiersis is the same as theorder of mean trust in different certifiers (3) Certification oforganic labels from their respective countries improvedChinese consumer preferences In addition academicinstitution-supported certifier exhibited significantly posi-tive interactions with foreign organic labels (4) Chineseconsumers did not show high ethnocentrism Howeverthere was a considerable discrepancy in the order of pref-erence for the organic labels among the ETH levels With theincrease in consumer ethnocentrism consumers showed asubstantially lower WTP for Japanese organic labels and asignificantly higher WTP for Chinese organic labels Con-sumer WTP for certifiers did not change significantly withthe increase in ETH with a slight increase for Chinesecertifiers slight decrease for US-invested certifiers andstability for Argentine-invested certifiers (5) e order ofpreference for different organic labels and that for variouscertifiers did not change with the increase in consumer trustHowever consumer WTP for each type of organic labelgenerally increased with the increase in trust It is worthnoting that the differences in consumerWTP among organiclabels and among certifiers decreased with the increase intrust
Overall Chinese consumers showed different WTPs fororganic labels from different sources due to consumerethnocentrism and trustese conclusions should serve as avital basis for food suppliers in their selection of certificationservices and target market positioning Moreover this re-search can not only serve as a guidance for the reformationof the certification system and development of the certifiedfood market in China but also provide information toforeign certification service providers when entering theChinese market
62Limitations is study had the following limitations (1)Our research was conducted during the period when Sino-Japanese economic and trade relations had cooled due to theDiaoyu Islands dispute and other issues is historicalbackground inevitably affected consumer attitudes towardsJapanese products or services to varying degrees usconsumer WTP for Japanese organic labels should betracked over a longer period (2) Countries-of-origins werelimited to the US Japan Argentina and ChinaeWTPs ofChinese consumers for organic labels from other countriesregions such as Canada and Brazil need to be further in-vestigated (3) Consumer trust in different organic labels and
certifiers were examined separately however trust was notexamined in regards to a specific type of organic label from aspecific type of certifier such as a US organic label issued bya Chinese government-supported certifier which should beexamined in future research
Data Availability
e data used to support the findings of this study areavailable from the corresponding author upon request
Conflicts of Interest
e authors declare that there are no conflicts of interestregarding the publication of this article
Acknowledgments
is paper was supported by the study of evaluation of socialwelfare of quality and safety certification policy for agri-cultural products in the new era in China a project of theSocial Science Foundation of China (Approval no18BJY153)
References
[1] S J Yin R Li L H Wu and X J Chen Introduction to 2018China Development Report on Food Satety Peking UniversityPress Beijing China 2018
[2] M R Darby and E Karni ldquoFree competition and the optimalamount of fraudrdquo Journal of Law and Economics vol 16 no 1pp 67ndash88 1973
[3] F Albersmeier H Schulze and A Spiller ldquoSystem dynamicsin food quality certifications development of an audit in-tegrity systemrdquo International Journal of Food System Dy-namics vol 1 no 1 pp 69ndash81 2010
[4] E Golan F Kuchler L Mitchell C Greene and A JessupldquoEconomics of food labellingrdquo Journal of Consumer Policyvol 24 no 2 pp 117ndash184 2001
[5] M Janssen and U Hamm ldquoProduct labelling in the marketfor organic food consumer preferences and willingness-to-pay for different organic certification logosrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 25 no 1 pp 9ndash22 2012
[6] S J Yin Information Asymmetry Certification Effectivenessand Consumer Preferences An Case Study of Organic FoodChina Social Sciences Press Beijing China 2013
[7] L H Wu S J Yin Y J Xu and D Zhu ldquoEffectiveness ofChinarsquos organic food certification policy consumer prefer-ences for infant milk formula with different organic certifi-cation labelsrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevue canadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 62 no 4 pp 545ndash5682014
Table 9 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay for certifiers based on different levels of trust in certifiers
Certifiers CTRUST1 CTRUST 2 CTRUST 3 CTRUST 4 CTRUST 5 CTRUST 6 CTRUST 7USCERT 1473lowastlowastlowast (0521) 1481lowastlowastlowast (0499) 1521lowastlowastlowast (0532) 1632lowastlowastlowast (0578) 1669lowastlowastlowast (0592) 1717lowastlowastlowast (0623) 1785lowastlowastlowast (0637)ARCERT 0756lowastlowastlowast (0213) 0803lowastlowastlowast (0201) 0956lowastlowastlowast (0266) 1127lowastlowastlowast (0242) 1151lowastlowastlowast (0308) 1286lowastlowastlowast (0403) 1301lowastlowastlowast (0424)GOVCERT 0974lowastlowastlowast (0359) 1006lowastlowastlowast (0362) 1128lowastlowastlowast (0412) 1315lowastlowastlowast (0437) 1346lowastlowastlowast (0464) 1385lowastlowastlowast (0502) 1402lowastlowastlowast (0521)ACACERT 0713lowastlowastlowast (0245) 0721lowastlowastlowast (0257) 0974lowastlowastlowast (0291) 1102lowastlowastlowast (0286) 1142lowastlowastlowast (0331) 1213lowastlowastlowast (0392) 1291lowastlowastlowast (0378)lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Standard errors of consumersrsquoWTPs are reported within the brackets Consumerethnocentrism and trust in organic labels are held at the sample average level
Journal of Food Quality 11
[8] National Bureau of Statistics of China National StatisticalYearbook China Statistics Press Beijing China 2015
[9] FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations) FAO Statistical Yearbooks FAO Rome Italy 2016httpwwwfaoorgfaostatendata
[10] L Probst E Houedjofonon H M Ayerakwa and R HaasldquoWill they buy it e potential for marketing organic veg-etables in the food vending sector to strengthen vegetablesafety a choice experiment study in threeWest African citiesrdquoFood Policy vol 37 no 3 pp 296ndash308 2012
[11] V Falguera N Aliguer and M Falguera ldquoAn integratedapproach to current trends in food consumption movingtoward functional and organic productsrdquo Food Controlvol 26 no 2 pp 274ndash281 2012
[12] R D Liu Z Pieniak and W Verbeke ldquoConsumersrsquo attitudesand behaviour towards safe food in China a reviewrdquo FoodControl vol 33 no 1 pp 93ndash104 2013
[13] F Soler J M Gil andM Sanchez ldquoConsumer acceptability oforganic food in Spain results from an experimental auctionmarketrdquo British Food Journal vol 104 no 8 pp 670ndash6872002
[14] R B Tranter R M Bennett L Costa et al ldquoConsumersrsquowillingness-to-pay for organic conversion-grade food evi-dence from five EU countriesrdquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 287ndash294 2009
[15] S Rousseau and L Vranken ldquoGreen market expansion byreducing information asymmetries evidence for labeled or-ganic food productsrdquo Food Policy vol 40 no 2 pp 31ndash432013
[16] F Napolitano and A Braghieri ldquoEffect of information aboutorganic production on beef liking and consumer willingnessto payrdquo Food Quality and Preference vol 21 no 2pp 207ndash212 2010
[17] C Hempel and U Hamm ldquoHow important is local food toorganic-minded consumersrdquo Appetite vol 96 no 1pp 309ndash318 2016
[18] I Olesen F Alfnes M B Roslashra and K Kolstad ldquoElicitingconsumersrsquo willingness to pay for organic and welfare-labelledsalmon in a non-hypothetical choice experimentrdquo LivestockScience vol 127 no 2-3 pp 218ndash226 2010
[19] E J Van Loo V Caputo R M Nayga J F Meullenet andS C Ricke ldquoConsumer willingness to pay for organic chickenbreast evidence from choice experimentrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 22 no 7 pp 603ndash613 2011
[20] B Roitner-Schobesberger I Darnhofer S Somsook andC R Vogl ldquoConsumer perceptions of organic foods inBangkok ailandrdquo Food Policy vol 33 no 2 pp 112ndash1212008
[21] G Vittersoslash and T Tangeland ldquoe role of consumers intransitions towards sustainable food consumption the case oforganic food in Norwayrdquo Journal of Cleaner Productionvol 92 no 1 pp 91ndash99 2015
[22] S J Yin M Chen Y S Chen Y Xu Z Zou and YiqinWangldquoConsumer trust in organic milk of different brands the roleof Chinese organic labelrdquo British Food Journal vol 118 no 7pp 1769ndash1782 2016
[23] J L Hsu and H P Nien ldquoWho are ethnocentric Examiningconsumer ethnocentrism in Chinese societiesrdquo Journal ofConsumer Behaviour vol 7 no 6 pp 436ndash447 2008
[24] G Hustvedt K A Carroll and J C Bernard ldquoConsumerethnocentricity and preferences for wool products by countryof origin and manufacturerdquo International Journal of Con-sumer Studies vol 37 no 5 pp 498ndash506 2013
[25] T A Shimp and S Sharma ldquoConsumer ethnocentrismconstruction and validation of the CETSCALErdquo Journal ofMarketing Research vol 24 no 3 pp 280ndash289 1987
[26] L Yan and H He ldquoEvaluation of international brand alli-ances brand order and consumer ethnocentrismrdquo Journal ofBusiness Research vol 66 no 1 pp 89ndash97 2013
[27] K L Granzin and J J Painter ldquoMotivational influences onldquobuy domesticrdquo purchasing marketing management impli-cations from a study of two nationsrdquo Journal of InternationalMarketing vol 9 no 2 pp 73ndash96 2001
[28] J G Klein R Ettenson and M D Morris ldquoe animositymodel of foreign product purchase an empirical test in thePeoplersquos Republic of Chinardquo Journal of Marketing vol 62no 1 pp 89ndash100 1998
[29] F Liu J Murphy J Li and X Liu ldquoEnglish and Chinese therole of consumer ethnocentrism and country of origin inChinese attitudes towards store signsrdquo Australasian Mar-keting Journal vol 14 no 2 pp 5ndash16 2007
[30] M Raskovic Z Ding V Skare ETH O Dosen and V ZabkarldquoComparing consumer innovativeness and ethnocentrism ofyoung-adult consumersrdquo Journal of Business Research vol 69no 9 pp 3682ndash3686 2016
[31] J He and C L Wang ldquoCultural identity and consumerethnocentrism impacts on preference and purchase of do-mestic versus import brands an empirical study in ChinardquoJournal of Business Research vol 68 no 6 pp 1225ndash12332015
[32] W Helga and J Lernoud $e world of organic agriculturestatistics and emerging trends 2014 httporgprintsorg251721willer-lernoud-2014-world-of-organicpdf
[33] R M Dawes and B Corrigan ldquoLinear models in decisionmakingrdquo Psychological Bulletin vol 81 no 2 pp 95ndash1061974
[34] J J Louviere D A Hensher and J D Swait Stated ChoiceMethods Analysis and Applications Cambridge UniversityPress Cambridge UK 2000
[35] G J Zhuang N Zhou and L X Zhou ldquoNational-brandconsciousness brand characteristics and consumer prefer-ence for indigenous brandsrdquo Management World vol 21pp 85ndash94 2006
[36] E Delgado-Ballester and J L Munuera-Aleman ldquoBrand trustin the context of consumer loyaltyrdquo European Journal ofMarketing vol 35 no 11-12 pp 1238ndash1258 2001
[37] R Lassoued J E Hobbs E T Micheels and D D ZhangldquoConsumer trust in chicken brands a structural equationmodelrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevuecanadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 63 no 4 pp 621ndash647 2015
[38] K J Lancaster ldquoA new approach to consumer theoryrdquoJournal of Political Economy vol 74 no 2 pp 132ndash157 1966
[39] J S James B J Rickard and W J Rossman ldquoProduct dif-ferentiation and market segmentation in applesauce using achoice experiment to assess the value of organic local andnutrition attributesrdquo Agricultural and Resource EconomicsReview vol 38 no 3 pp 357ndash370 2009
[40] D McFadden and K Train ldquoMixed MNL models for discreteresponserdquo Journal of Applied Econometrics vol 15 no 5pp 447ndash470 2000
[41] A Claret L Guerrero E Aguirre et al ldquoConsumer prefer-ences for sea fish using conjoint analysis exploratory study ofthe importance of country of origin obtaining methodstorage conditions and purchasing pricerdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 26 no 2 pp 259ndash266 2012
12 Journal of Food Quality
[42] Y Y Cai and J X He ldquoJoy and peace an empirical study onthe effect of positive emotion on the country of originrdquoJournal of Marketing Science vol 8 pp 76ndash87 2012
[43] D Ubilava and K Foster ldquoQuality certification vs producttraceability consumer preferences for informational attri-butes of pork in Georgiardquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 305ndash310 2009
[44] J L Lusk J Roosen and J A Fox ldquoDemand for beef from cattleadministered growth hormones or fed genetically modifiedcorn a comparison of consumers in France Germany theUnited Kingdom and the United Statesrdquo American Journal ofAgricultural Economics vol 85 no 1 pp 16ndash29 2003
[45] A R Hole ldquoA comparison of approaches to estimatingconfidence intervals for willingness to pay measuresrdquo HealthEconomics vol 16 no 8 pp 827ndash840 2007
[46] R Alphonce and F Alfnes ldquoConsumer willingness to pay forfood safety in Tanzania an incentive-aligned conjoint anal-ysisrdquo International Journal of Consumer Studies vol 36 no 4pp 394ndash400 2012
[47] J L Lusk J Brown T Mark I Proseku R ompson andJ Welsh ldquoConsumer behavior public policy and country-of-origin labellingrdquo Review of Agricultural Economics vol 28no 2 pp 284ndash292 2006
studies on country-of-origin effects that products (or ser-vices) from developed countries are always more popularthan those from developing countries [42] Of note a muchlower WTP was expressed for organic labels from Japan adeveloped country and was even slightly lower than theWTP for organic labels from Argentina a developingcountry By contrast the mean trust in USORG and JPORGwas similar and much higher than that in ARORG orCNORG as shown in Table 7 e deviation between trustand WTP ie relatively low WTP for JPORG might bebased on several reasons First consumers might considerthat Japan an island country with a small territory doesnot have competitive advantages in agricultural pro-duction second it might be related to consumer ethno-centrism and the complex Sino-Japanese relationshipAnother surprising finding was that a relatively high WTPwas expressed for organic labels from Argentina a countrythat is relatively similar to China in economic developmentA possible reason is that Argentina is a large agriculturalcountry with a competitive advantage in agriculturalproduction and the second largest organic farmland area inthe world It is also a large developing country like Chinawhich might generate positive country-of-origin effects onthe products (or services) of Argentina As shown in Ta-ble 6 the lowest WTP was expressed for CNORG Incontrast Alphonce and Alfnes and Lusk et al argued thatconsumers have greater loyalty to their own country anddiscriminate against other countries to some extent[46 47] e possible reasons for this inconsistency are asfollows (1) Many Chinese consumers believe that agri-cultural science and technology and management levels inChina fall far behind those of developed countries withorganic certification no exception In addition someconsumers exhibit blind faith in foreign products which isa belief primarily based on purchase experience Con-sumers can believe that products from developed countriesare of a higher quality than those made in China even whenquality is the same [7] (2)e misuse and even falsificationof organic labels has jeopardized the development of thisemerging market in China (After inspecting the authen-ticity of organic certification in 2014 the Certification andAccreditation Administration of the PRC declared a re-markable misuse rate of 58 in certification labels Ofthem 50 were due to the prolonged use of certificates286 were suspected of lacking organic codes 143 weresuspected of using counterfeit organic codes and 71 didnot use certification labels as specified Source Sohu httpmtsohucom20160621n455577833shtml) Numerouscertification fraud incidents have occurred in recent years
e ldquoChongqing Wal-Mart green porkrdquo incident in 2011and the ldquoGuizhou organic Maotairdquo incident in 2013 bothimpacted the authority of Chinese food safety certificationand reduced consumer trust in Chinese organic labelsus consumers believe that the reliability of organic labelsfrom other developing countries such as Argentina ishigher than that of China
e WTP estimates for certifiers in Table 6 showed thatconsumers were willing to pay higher premiums forGOVCERT than PRICERT Janssen and Hamm found thatconsumers in some countries have a higher WTP forgovernment-certified labels than private ones whereas theopposite is true in other countries furthermore consumersin some countries do not show significantly different WTPbetween the two labels and consumer preferences for labelscan vary with the type of organic product [5]
54 Consumer Ethnocentrism and WTP for Organic FoodTo further examine the sensitivity of consumer WTP basedon different levels of ethnocentrism using the parametricbootstrapping technique outlined in Hole we calculatedWTP measures for each type of organic label and certifierbased on different levels of ETH [45] In this calculation thelevels of trust in labels (LTRUST) and trust in certifiers(CTRUST) were held at sample average while ETH wasallowed to change from 1 to 7 taking only integer valuesTable 8 shows the result
As seen in Table 8 there were considerable differences inthe order of preference for the organic labels among the ETHlevels e greatest difference was observed in their WTP forJapanese and Chinese organic labels When the level of ETH islow the order of WTP for organic labels from differentcountries was USORGgt JPORGgtARORGgtCNORG eirWTP for USORG and JPORG was much higher than that forARORG which was in turn much higher than that forCNORG With increases in ETH the WTP for USORG andARORG decreased especially for JPORG but the WTP forCNORG increased When the level of ETH is relatively highthere is a different WTP order for organic labels from differentcountries that is USORGgtCNORGgtARORGgt JPORGey showed amuch higherWTP for CNORG and although itwas lower than the WTP for USORG it was higher than thatfor ARORG and JPORG (which had the lowestWTP) Overallwith the increase in ETH consumers showed a lower WTP forforeign organic labels especially for those from Japan and asignificantly higher WTP for organic labels from China isindicated that ETH had a considerable impact on consumerpreferences
Table 7 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay for organic labels based on different levels of trust in organic labels
Label LTRUST1 LTRUST 2 LTRUST 3 LTRUST 4 LTRUST 5 LTRUST 6 LTRUST 7USORG 1531lowastlowastlowast (0583) 1511lowastlowastlowast (0579) 1576lowastlowastlowast (0548) 1588lowastlowastlowast (0573) 1592lowastlowastlowast (0566) 1607lowastlowastlowast (0602) 1608lowastlowastlowast (0598)JPORG 0903lowastlowastlowast (0341) 0923lowastlowastlowast (0349) 0955lowastlowastlowast (0362) 1056lowastlowastlowast (0359) 1109lowastlowastlowast (0403) 1111lowastlowastlowast (0412) 1114lowastlowastlowast (0409)ARORG 1112lowastlowastlowast (0409) 1108lowastlowastlowast (0396) 1134lowastlowastlowast (0421) 1197lowastlowastlowast (0430) 1211lowastlowastlowast (0462) 1257lowastlowastlowast (0473) 1266lowastlowastlowast (0471)CNORG 0599lowastlowastlowast (0212) 0605lowastlowastlowast (0227) 0710lowastlowastlowast (0221) 0715lowastlowastlowast (0247) 0813lowastlowastlowast (0289) 0907lowastlowastlowast (0301) 0915lowastlowastlowast (0315)lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Standard errors of consumerWTPs are reported within the brackets Consumerethnocentrism and trust in certifiers are held at the sample average level
Journal of Food Quality 9
Table 8 also shows that with the increase in ETHconsumer WTP slightly increased for Chinese certifiersslightly decreased for USCERT and remained substantiallyunchanged for ARCERT Moreover the order of preferencesfor certifiers remains unchanged is indicated that thepreferences of Chinese consumers for domestic and foreigncertifiers were not affected by ethnocentrism to any greatextent Since its reformation the Chinese government hasgenerally adopted a policy of encouraging direct foreigninvestment In this context Chinese consumers have alsowelcomed direct foreign investment and view its contributionto domestic employment and economic growth positivelyHowever this speculation needs further verification
55 Trust Effects on Preferences and WTP For a similarreason WTP measured at different levels of trust for eachtype of organic label and certifier was calculated whileallowing the trust measures to change from 1 to 7 takingevery integer values in between When calculating the im-pact of trust in organic labels (LTRUST) consumer eth-nocentrism (ETH) and trust in certifiers (CTRUST) wereheld at sample average Variables ETH and LTRUST wereheld at the sample average while calculating the impact ofCTRUST e results are shown in Tables 7 and 9
Based on results in Table 7 with the increase in con-sumer trust (the respondents were grouped in five differentways per their trust in the four organic labels as well asaverage trust e WTP for each type of organic label wasthen calculated for the different groups However only theWTP of respondents grouped by average trust (AVERAGE)are discussed in this paper Based on the survey data thecorrelation coefficients between the trust scores for thedifferent organic labels were all greater than 08 indicating apositive correlation between trust scores for each type oforganic label Although consumer trust varied among theorganic labels consumers with a higher trust in a certainorganic label were more inclined to trust the other threetypes of organic labels Our calculation results also showedno significant differences in WTP among the trust groupswhen the respondents were grouped as mentioned aboveGiven space limitations the calculation results for all groupsare not presented e same is true for the grouping ofrespondents by their trust in different certifiers) the order ofpreference for the organic labels remained the sameUSORGgtARORGgt JPORGgtCNORG Similarly the orderof preference for the certifiers remained the same
USCERTgtACACERTgtARCERTgtGOVCERT Howeverwith the increase in trust consumer WTP for each type oforganic label and certifier generally increased which cor-roborates previous research on consumer WTP for organicfood12 It is worth noting that in general the difference inWTP among organic labels decreased with the increase intrust For example according to Table 7 when consumertrust in organic labels increased from 1 to 7 the differencebetween their WTP for a US label and a Chinese labeldecreased fromUS$ 0932 to $ 0693 respectively ConsumerWTP for other labels showed a similar trend
Similarly the data in Table 9 indicate that the differencesin WTP among certifiers also decreased with the increase intrust (Table 9) Due to the frequent food safety incidents andscandals in China in recent years consumers in the low trustgroups had lower levels of trust in Chinese organic labels andcertifiers but relatively higher levels of trust in foreignorganic labels and foreign-invested certifiers thus resultingin greater differences in their WTP is suggests that anincrease in consumer trust in organic certification will helpto enhance WTP especially for Chinese organic labels andcertifiers
6 Conclusions and Limitations
61 Conclusions In this paper consumer WTP for organiclabels from different sources was examined using the choiceexperiment method and mixed logit model Furthermorethe impacts of consumer ethnocentrism and trust on con-sumer preferences were analyzed e main conclusions areas follows (1) Mean consumer trust in organic labels variedwith the country of origin e highest level of trust wasfound in US organic labels followed by Japanese Argentineand Chinese organic labels Consumer trust in certifiers alsosignificantly differed with the country of origin e highestlevel of trust was found in US-invested certifiers followed byChinese academic institution-supported Argentine-invested and Chinese government-supported certifiersand lastly in Chinese private certifiers (2) Consumer WTPvaried greatly among the organic labels e highest WTPwas expressed for US organic labels followed by Argentineand Japanese organic labels and lastly Chinese organic la-bels e order of WTP was not consistent with that ofconsumer trust mainly due to the relatively low WTP forJapanese organic labels Chinese consumers not only showedstrong preference for US organic labels but also the highest
Table 8 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay based on different levels of ethnocentrism
Level ETH 1 ETH 2 ETH 3 ETH 4 ETH 5 ETH 6 ETH 7USORG 1638lowastlowastlowast 1618lowastlowastlowast 1597lowastlowastlowast 1582lowastlowastlowast 1501lowastlowastlowast 1428lowastlowastlowast 1431lowastlowastlowastJPORG 1321lowastlowastlowast 1317lowastlowastlowast 1205lowastlowastlowast 1113lowastlowastlowast 0954lowastlowastlowast 0886lowastlowastlowast 0884lowastlowastlowastARORG 1129lowastlowastlowast 1125lowastlowastlowast 1125lowastlowastlowast 1121lowastlowastlowast 1003lowastlowastlowast 0922lowastlowastlowast 0829lowastlowastlowastCNORG 0685lowastlowastlowast 0698lowastlowastlowast 0738lowastlowastlowast 0754lowastlowastlowast 0893lowastlowastlowast 1029lowastlowastlowast 1253lowastlowastlowastUSCERT 1508lowastlowastlowast 1504lowastlowastlowast 1496lowastlowastlowast 1486lowastlowastlowast 1395lowastlowastlowast 1370lowastlowastlowast 1371lowastlowastlowastARCERT 1460lowastlowastlowast 1451lowastlowastlowast 1448lowastlowastlowast 1436lowastlowastlowast 1431lowastlowastlowast 1434lowastlowastlowast 1433lowastlowastlowastGOVCERT 1080lowastlowastlowast 1085lowastlowastlowast 1107lowastlowastlowast 1115lowastlowastlowast 1311lowastlowastlowast 1308lowastlowastlowast 1319lowastlowastlowastACACERT 0891lowastlowastlowast 0882lowastlowastlowast 0921lowastlowastlowast 0936lowastlowastlowast 1086lowastlowastlowast 1165lowastlowastlowast 1172lowastlowastlowastlowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowast denote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Variables LTRUST and CTRUST are held at the sample average level
10 Journal of Food Quality
WTP for US-invested certifiers followed by Chinese aca-demic institution-supported Argentine-invested and Chi-nese government-supported certifiersis is the same as theorder of mean trust in different certifiers (3) Certification oforganic labels from their respective countries improvedChinese consumer preferences In addition academicinstitution-supported certifier exhibited significantly posi-tive interactions with foreign organic labels (4) Chineseconsumers did not show high ethnocentrism Howeverthere was a considerable discrepancy in the order of pref-erence for the organic labels among the ETH levels With theincrease in consumer ethnocentrism consumers showed asubstantially lower WTP for Japanese organic labels and asignificantly higher WTP for Chinese organic labels Con-sumer WTP for certifiers did not change significantly withthe increase in ETH with a slight increase for Chinesecertifiers slight decrease for US-invested certifiers andstability for Argentine-invested certifiers (5) e order ofpreference for different organic labels and that for variouscertifiers did not change with the increase in consumer trustHowever consumer WTP for each type of organic labelgenerally increased with the increase in trust It is worthnoting that the differences in consumerWTP among organiclabels and among certifiers decreased with the increase intrust
Overall Chinese consumers showed different WTPs fororganic labels from different sources due to consumerethnocentrism and trustese conclusions should serve as avital basis for food suppliers in their selection of certificationservices and target market positioning Moreover this re-search can not only serve as a guidance for the reformationof the certification system and development of the certifiedfood market in China but also provide information toforeign certification service providers when entering theChinese market
62Limitations is study had the following limitations (1)Our research was conducted during the period when Sino-Japanese economic and trade relations had cooled due to theDiaoyu Islands dispute and other issues is historicalbackground inevitably affected consumer attitudes towardsJapanese products or services to varying degrees usconsumer WTP for Japanese organic labels should betracked over a longer period (2) Countries-of-origins werelimited to the US Japan Argentina and ChinaeWTPs ofChinese consumers for organic labels from other countriesregions such as Canada and Brazil need to be further in-vestigated (3) Consumer trust in different organic labels and
certifiers were examined separately however trust was notexamined in regards to a specific type of organic label from aspecific type of certifier such as a US organic label issued bya Chinese government-supported certifier which should beexamined in future research
Data Availability
e data used to support the findings of this study areavailable from the corresponding author upon request
Conflicts of Interest
e authors declare that there are no conflicts of interestregarding the publication of this article
Acknowledgments
is paper was supported by the study of evaluation of socialwelfare of quality and safety certification policy for agri-cultural products in the new era in China a project of theSocial Science Foundation of China (Approval no18BJY153)
References
[1] S J Yin R Li L H Wu and X J Chen Introduction to 2018China Development Report on Food Satety Peking UniversityPress Beijing China 2018
[2] M R Darby and E Karni ldquoFree competition and the optimalamount of fraudrdquo Journal of Law and Economics vol 16 no 1pp 67ndash88 1973
[3] F Albersmeier H Schulze and A Spiller ldquoSystem dynamicsin food quality certifications development of an audit in-tegrity systemrdquo International Journal of Food System Dy-namics vol 1 no 1 pp 69ndash81 2010
[4] E Golan F Kuchler L Mitchell C Greene and A JessupldquoEconomics of food labellingrdquo Journal of Consumer Policyvol 24 no 2 pp 117ndash184 2001
[5] M Janssen and U Hamm ldquoProduct labelling in the marketfor organic food consumer preferences and willingness-to-pay for different organic certification logosrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 25 no 1 pp 9ndash22 2012
[6] S J Yin Information Asymmetry Certification Effectivenessand Consumer Preferences An Case Study of Organic FoodChina Social Sciences Press Beijing China 2013
[7] L H Wu S J Yin Y J Xu and D Zhu ldquoEffectiveness ofChinarsquos organic food certification policy consumer prefer-ences for infant milk formula with different organic certifi-cation labelsrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevue canadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 62 no 4 pp 545ndash5682014
Table 9 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay for certifiers based on different levels of trust in certifiers
Certifiers CTRUST1 CTRUST 2 CTRUST 3 CTRUST 4 CTRUST 5 CTRUST 6 CTRUST 7USCERT 1473lowastlowastlowast (0521) 1481lowastlowastlowast (0499) 1521lowastlowastlowast (0532) 1632lowastlowastlowast (0578) 1669lowastlowastlowast (0592) 1717lowastlowastlowast (0623) 1785lowastlowastlowast (0637)ARCERT 0756lowastlowastlowast (0213) 0803lowastlowastlowast (0201) 0956lowastlowastlowast (0266) 1127lowastlowastlowast (0242) 1151lowastlowastlowast (0308) 1286lowastlowastlowast (0403) 1301lowastlowastlowast (0424)GOVCERT 0974lowastlowastlowast (0359) 1006lowastlowastlowast (0362) 1128lowastlowastlowast (0412) 1315lowastlowastlowast (0437) 1346lowastlowastlowast (0464) 1385lowastlowastlowast (0502) 1402lowastlowastlowast (0521)ACACERT 0713lowastlowastlowast (0245) 0721lowastlowastlowast (0257) 0974lowastlowastlowast (0291) 1102lowastlowastlowast (0286) 1142lowastlowastlowast (0331) 1213lowastlowastlowast (0392) 1291lowastlowastlowast (0378)lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Standard errors of consumersrsquoWTPs are reported within the brackets Consumerethnocentrism and trust in organic labels are held at the sample average level
Journal of Food Quality 11
[8] National Bureau of Statistics of China National StatisticalYearbook China Statistics Press Beijing China 2015
[9] FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations) FAO Statistical Yearbooks FAO Rome Italy 2016httpwwwfaoorgfaostatendata
[10] L Probst E Houedjofonon H M Ayerakwa and R HaasldquoWill they buy it e potential for marketing organic veg-etables in the food vending sector to strengthen vegetablesafety a choice experiment study in threeWest African citiesrdquoFood Policy vol 37 no 3 pp 296ndash308 2012
[11] V Falguera N Aliguer and M Falguera ldquoAn integratedapproach to current trends in food consumption movingtoward functional and organic productsrdquo Food Controlvol 26 no 2 pp 274ndash281 2012
[12] R D Liu Z Pieniak and W Verbeke ldquoConsumersrsquo attitudesand behaviour towards safe food in China a reviewrdquo FoodControl vol 33 no 1 pp 93ndash104 2013
[13] F Soler J M Gil andM Sanchez ldquoConsumer acceptability oforganic food in Spain results from an experimental auctionmarketrdquo British Food Journal vol 104 no 8 pp 670ndash6872002
[14] R B Tranter R M Bennett L Costa et al ldquoConsumersrsquowillingness-to-pay for organic conversion-grade food evi-dence from five EU countriesrdquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 287ndash294 2009
[15] S Rousseau and L Vranken ldquoGreen market expansion byreducing information asymmetries evidence for labeled or-ganic food productsrdquo Food Policy vol 40 no 2 pp 31ndash432013
[16] F Napolitano and A Braghieri ldquoEffect of information aboutorganic production on beef liking and consumer willingnessto payrdquo Food Quality and Preference vol 21 no 2pp 207ndash212 2010
[17] C Hempel and U Hamm ldquoHow important is local food toorganic-minded consumersrdquo Appetite vol 96 no 1pp 309ndash318 2016
[18] I Olesen F Alfnes M B Roslashra and K Kolstad ldquoElicitingconsumersrsquo willingness to pay for organic and welfare-labelledsalmon in a non-hypothetical choice experimentrdquo LivestockScience vol 127 no 2-3 pp 218ndash226 2010
[19] E J Van Loo V Caputo R M Nayga J F Meullenet andS C Ricke ldquoConsumer willingness to pay for organic chickenbreast evidence from choice experimentrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 22 no 7 pp 603ndash613 2011
[20] B Roitner-Schobesberger I Darnhofer S Somsook andC R Vogl ldquoConsumer perceptions of organic foods inBangkok ailandrdquo Food Policy vol 33 no 2 pp 112ndash1212008
[21] G Vittersoslash and T Tangeland ldquoe role of consumers intransitions towards sustainable food consumption the case oforganic food in Norwayrdquo Journal of Cleaner Productionvol 92 no 1 pp 91ndash99 2015
[22] S J Yin M Chen Y S Chen Y Xu Z Zou and YiqinWangldquoConsumer trust in organic milk of different brands the roleof Chinese organic labelrdquo British Food Journal vol 118 no 7pp 1769ndash1782 2016
[23] J L Hsu and H P Nien ldquoWho are ethnocentric Examiningconsumer ethnocentrism in Chinese societiesrdquo Journal ofConsumer Behaviour vol 7 no 6 pp 436ndash447 2008
[24] G Hustvedt K A Carroll and J C Bernard ldquoConsumerethnocentricity and preferences for wool products by countryof origin and manufacturerdquo International Journal of Con-sumer Studies vol 37 no 5 pp 498ndash506 2013
[25] T A Shimp and S Sharma ldquoConsumer ethnocentrismconstruction and validation of the CETSCALErdquo Journal ofMarketing Research vol 24 no 3 pp 280ndash289 1987
[26] L Yan and H He ldquoEvaluation of international brand alli-ances brand order and consumer ethnocentrismrdquo Journal ofBusiness Research vol 66 no 1 pp 89ndash97 2013
[27] K L Granzin and J J Painter ldquoMotivational influences onldquobuy domesticrdquo purchasing marketing management impli-cations from a study of two nationsrdquo Journal of InternationalMarketing vol 9 no 2 pp 73ndash96 2001
[28] J G Klein R Ettenson and M D Morris ldquoe animositymodel of foreign product purchase an empirical test in thePeoplersquos Republic of Chinardquo Journal of Marketing vol 62no 1 pp 89ndash100 1998
[29] F Liu J Murphy J Li and X Liu ldquoEnglish and Chinese therole of consumer ethnocentrism and country of origin inChinese attitudes towards store signsrdquo Australasian Mar-keting Journal vol 14 no 2 pp 5ndash16 2007
[30] M Raskovic Z Ding V Skare ETH O Dosen and V ZabkarldquoComparing consumer innovativeness and ethnocentrism ofyoung-adult consumersrdquo Journal of Business Research vol 69no 9 pp 3682ndash3686 2016
[31] J He and C L Wang ldquoCultural identity and consumerethnocentrism impacts on preference and purchase of do-mestic versus import brands an empirical study in ChinardquoJournal of Business Research vol 68 no 6 pp 1225ndash12332015
[32] W Helga and J Lernoud $e world of organic agriculturestatistics and emerging trends 2014 httporgprintsorg251721willer-lernoud-2014-world-of-organicpdf
[33] R M Dawes and B Corrigan ldquoLinear models in decisionmakingrdquo Psychological Bulletin vol 81 no 2 pp 95ndash1061974
[34] J J Louviere D A Hensher and J D Swait Stated ChoiceMethods Analysis and Applications Cambridge UniversityPress Cambridge UK 2000
[35] G J Zhuang N Zhou and L X Zhou ldquoNational-brandconsciousness brand characteristics and consumer prefer-ence for indigenous brandsrdquo Management World vol 21pp 85ndash94 2006
[36] E Delgado-Ballester and J L Munuera-Aleman ldquoBrand trustin the context of consumer loyaltyrdquo European Journal ofMarketing vol 35 no 11-12 pp 1238ndash1258 2001
[37] R Lassoued J E Hobbs E T Micheels and D D ZhangldquoConsumer trust in chicken brands a structural equationmodelrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevuecanadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 63 no 4 pp 621ndash647 2015
[38] K J Lancaster ldquoA new approach to consumer theoryrdquoJournal of Political Economy vol 74 no 2 pp 132ndash157 1966
[39] J S James B J Rickard and W J Rossman ldquoProduct dif-ferentiation and market segmentation in applesauce using achoice experiment to assess the value of organic local andnutrition attributesrdquo Agricultural and Resource EconomicsReview vol 38 no 3 pp 357ndash370 2009
[40] D McFadden and K Train ldquoMixed MNL models for discreteresponserdquo Journal of Applied Econometrics vol 15 no 5pp 447ndash470 2000
[41] A Claret L Guerrero E Aguirre et al ldquoConsumer prefer-ences for sea fish using conjoint analysis exploratory study ofthe importance of country of origin obtaining methodstorage conditions and purchasing pricerdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 26 no 2 pp 259ndash266 2012
12 Journal of Food Quality
[42] Y Y Cai and J X He ldquoJoy and peace an empirical study onthe effect of positive emotion on the country of originrdquoJournal of Marketing Science vol 8 pp 76ndash87 2012
[43] D Ubilava and K Foster ldquoQuality certification vs producttraceability consumer preferences for informational attri-butes of pork in Georgiardquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 305ndash310 2009
[44] J L Lusk J Roosen and J A Fox ldquoDemand for beef from cattleadministered growth hormones or fed genetically modifiedcorn a comparison of consumers in France Germany theUnited Kingdom and the United Statesrdquo American Journal ofAgricultural Economics vol 85 no 1 pp 16ndash29 2003
[45] A R Hole ldquoA comparison of approaches to estimatingconfidence intervals for willingness to pay measuresrdquo HealthEconomics vol 16 no 8 pp 827ndash840 2007
[46] R Alphonce and F Alfnes ldquoConsumer willingness to pay forfood safety in Tanzania an incentive-aligned conjoint anal-ysisrdquo International Journal of Consumer Studies vol 36 no 4pp 394ndash400 2012
[47] J L Lusk J Brown T Mark I Proseku R ompson andJ Welsh ldquoConsumer behavior public policy and country-of-origin labellingrdquo Review of Agricultural Economics vol 28no 2 pp 284ndash292 2006
Table 8 also shows that with the increase in ETHconsumer WTP slightly increased for Chinese certifiersslightly decreased for USCERT and remained substantiallyunchanged for ARCERT Moreover the order of preferencesfor certifiers remains unchanged is indicated that thepreferences of Chinese consumers for domestic and foreigncertifiers were not affected by ethnocentrism to any greatextent Since its reformation the Chinese government hasgenerally adopted a policy of encouraging direct foreigninvestment In this context Chinese consumers have alsowelcomed direct foreign investment and view its contributionto domestic employment and economic growth positivelyHowever this speculation needs further verification
55 Trust Effects on Preferences and WTP For a similarreason WTP measured at different levels of trust for eachtype of organic label and certifier was calculated whileallowing the trust measures to change from 1 to 7 takingevery integer values in between When calculating the im-pact of trust in organic labels (LTRUST) consumer eth-nocentrism (ETH) and trust in certifiers (CTRUST) wereheld at sample average Variables ETH and LTRUST wereheld at the sample average while calculating the impact ofCTRUST e results are shown in Tables 7 and 9
Based on results in Table 7 with the increase in con-sumer trust (the respondents were grouped in five differentways per their trust in the four organic labels as well asaverage trust e WTP for each type of organic label wasthen calculated for the different groups However only theWTP of respondents grouped by average trust (AVERAGE)are discussed in this paper Based on the survey data thecorrelation coefficients between the trust scores for thedifferent organic labels were all greater than 08 indicating apositive correlation between trust scores for each type oforganic label Although consumer trust varied among theorganic labels consumers with a higher trust in a certainorganic label were more inclined to trust the other threetypes of organic labels Our calculation results also showedno significant differences in WTP among the trust groupswhen the respondents were grouped as mentioned aboveGiven space limitations the calculation results for all groupsare not presented e same is true for the grouping ofrespondents by their trust in different certifiers) the order ofpreference for the organic labels remained the sameUSORGgtARORGgt JPORGgtCNORG Similarly the orderof preference for the certifiers remained the same
USCERTgtACACERTgtARCERTgtGOVCERT Howeverwith the increase in trust consumer WTP for each type oforganic label and certifier generally increased which cor-roborates previous research on consumer WTP for organicfood12 It is worth noting that in general the difference inWTP among organic labels decreased with the increase intrust For example according to Table 7 when consumertrust in organic labels increased from 1 to 7 the differencebetween their WTP for a US label and a Chinese labeldecreased fromUS$ 0932 to $ 0693 respectively ConsumerWTP for other labels showed a similar trend
Similarly the data in Table 9 indicate that the differencesin WTP among certifiers also decreased with the increase intrust (Table 9) Due to the frequent food safety incidents andscandals in China in recent years consumers in the low trustgroups had lower levels of trust in Chinese organic labels andcertifiers but relatively higher levels of trust in foreignorganic labels and foreign-invested certifiers thus resultingin greater differences in their WTP is suggests that anincrease in consumer trust in organic certification will helpto enhance WTP especially for Chinese organic labels andcertifiers
6 Conclusions and Limitations
61 Conclusions In this paper consumer WTP for organiclabels from different sources was examined using the choiceexperiment method and mixed logit model Furthermorethe impacts of consumer ethnocentrism and trust on con-sumer preferences were analyzed e main conclusions areas follows (1) Mean consumer trust in organic labels variedwith the country of origin e highest level of trust wasfound in US organic labels followed by Japanese Argentineand Chinese organic labels Consumer trust in certifiers alsosignificantly differed with the country of origin e highestlevel of trust was found in US-invested certifiers followed byChinese academic institution-supported Argentine-invested and Chinese government-supported certifiersand lastly in Chinese private certifiers (2) Consumer WTPvaried greatly among the organic labels e highest WTPwas expressed for US organic labels followed by Argentineand Japanese organic labels and lastly Chinese organic la-bels e order of WTP was not consistent with that ofconsumer trust mainly due to the relatively low WTP forJapanese organic labels Chinese consumers not only showedstrong preference for US organic labels but also the highest
Table 8 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay based on different levels of ethnocentrism
Level ETH 1 ETH 2 ETH 3 ETH 4 ETH 5 ETH 6 ETH 7USORG 1638lowastlowastlowast 1618lowastlowastlowast 1597lowastlowastlowast 1582lowastlowastlowast 1501lowastlowastlowast 1428lowastlowastlowast 1431lowastlowastlowastJPORG 1321lowastlowastlowast 1317lowastlowastlowast 1205lowastlowastlowast 1113lowastlowastlowast 0954lowastlowastlowast 0886lowastlowastlowast 0884lowastlowastlowastARORG 1129lowastlowastlowast 1125lowastlowastlowast 1125lowastlowastlowast 1121lowastlowastlowast 1003lowastlowastlowast 0922lowastlowastlowast 0829lowastlowastlowastCNORG 0685lowastlowastlowast 0698lowastlowastlowast 0738lowastlowastlowast 0754lowastlowastlowast 0893lowastlowastlowast 1029lowastlowastlowast 1253lowastlowastlowastUSCERT 1508lowastlowastlowast 1504lowastlowastlowast 1496lowastlowastlowast 1486lowastlowastlowast 1395lowastlowastlowast 1370lowastlowastlowast 1371lowastlowastlowastARCERT 1460lowastlowastlowast 1451lowastlowastlowast 1448lowastlowastlowast 1436lowastlowastlowast 1431lowastlowastlowast 1434lowastlowastlowast 1433lowastlowastlowastGOVCERT 1080lowastlowastlowast 1085lowastlowastlowast 1107lowastlowastlowast 1115lowastlowastlowast 1311lowastlowastlowast 1308lowastlowastlowast 1319lowastlowastlowastACACERT 0891lowastlowastlowast 0882lowastlowastlowast 0921lowastlowastlowast 0936lowastlowastlowast 1086lowastlowastlowast 1165lowastlowastlowast 1172lowastlowastlowastlowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowast denote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Variables LTRUST and CTRUST are held at the sample average level
10 Journal of Food Quality
WTP for US-invested certifiers followed by Chinese aca-demic institution-supported Argentine-invested and Chi-nese government-supported certifiersis is the same as theorder of mean trust in different certifiers (3) Certification oforganic labels from their respective countries improvedChinese consumer preferences In addition academicinstitution-supported certifier exhibited significantly posi-tive interactions with foreign organic labels (4) Chineseconsumers did not show high ethnocentrism Howeverthere was a considerable discrepancy in the order of pref-erence for the organic labels among the ETH levels With theincrease in consumer ethnocentrism consumers showed asubstantially lower WTP for Japanese organic labels and asignificantly higher WTP for Chinese organic labels Con-sumer WTP for certifiers did not change significantly withthe increase in ETH with a slight increase for Chinesecertifiers slight decrease for US-invested certifiers andstability for Argentine-invested certifiers (5) e order ofpreference for different organic labels and that for variouscertifiers did not change with the increase in consumer trustHowever consumer WTP for each type of organic labelgenerally increased with the increase in trust It is worthnoting that the differences in consumerWTP among organiclabels and among certifiers decreased with the increase intrust
Overall Chinese consumers showed different WTPs fororganic labels from different sources due to consumerethnocentrism and trustese conclusions should serve as avital basis for food suppliers in their selection of certificationservices and target market positioning Moreover this re-search can not only serve as a guidance for the reformationof the certification system and development of the certifiedfood market in China but also provide information toforeign certification service providers when entering theChinese market
62Limitations is study had the following limitations (1)Our research was conducted during the period when Sino-Japanese economic and trade relations had cooled due to theDiaoyu Islands dispute and other issues is historicalbackground inevitably affected consumer attitudes towardsJapanese products or services to varying degrees usconsumer WTP for Japanese organic labels should betracked over a longer period (2) Countries-of-origins werelimited to the US Japan Argentina and ChinaeWTPs ofChinese consumers for organic labels from other countriesregions such as Canada and Brazil need to be further in-vestigated (3) Consumer trust in different organic labels and
certifiers were examined separately however trust was notexamined in regards to a specific type of organic label from aspecific type of certifier such as a US organic label issued bya Chinese government-supported certifier which should beexamined in future research
Data Availability
e data used to support the findings of this study areavailable from the corresponding author upon request
Conflicts of Interest
e authors declare that there are no conflicts of interestregarding the publication of this article
Acknowledgments
is paper was supported by the study of evaluation of socialwelfare of quality and safety certification policy for agri-cultural products in the new era in China a project of theSocial Science Foundation of China (Approval no18BJY153)
References
[1] S J Yin R Li L H Wu and X J Chen Introduction to 2018China Development Report on Food Satety Peking UniversityPress Beijing China 2018
[2] M R Darby and E Karni ldquoFree competition and the optimalamount of fraudrdquo Journal of Law and Economics vol 16 no 1pp 67ndash88 1973
[3] F Albersmeier H Schulze and A Spiller ldquoSystem dynamicsin food quality certifications development of an audit in-tegrity systemrdquo International Journal of Food System Dy-namics vol 1 no 1 pp 69ndash81 2010
[4] E Golan F Kuchler L Mitchell C Greene and A JessupldquoEconomics of food labellingrdquo Journal of Consumer Policyvol 24 no 2 pp 117ndash184 2001
[5] M Janssen and U Hamm ldquoProduct labelling in the marketfor organic food consumer preferences and willingness-to-pay for different organic certification logosrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 25 no 1 pp 9ndash22 2012
[6] S J Yin Information Asymmetry Certification Effectivenessand Consumer Preferences An Case Study of Organic FoodChina Social Sciences Press Beijing China 2013
[7] L H Wu S J Yin Y J Xu and D Zhu ldquoEffectiveness ofChinarsquos organic food certification policy consumer prefer-ences for infant milk formula with different organic certifi-cation labelsrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevue canadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 62 no 4 pp 545ndash5682014
Table 9 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay for certifiers based on different levels of trust in certifiers
Certifiers CTRUST1 CTRUST 2 CTRUST 3 CTRUST 4 CTRUST 5 CTRUST 6 CTRUST 7USCERT 1473lowastlowastlowast (0521) 1481lowastlowastlowast (0499) 1521lowastlowastlowast (0532) 1632lowastlowastlowast (0578) 1669lowastlowastlowast (0592) 1717lowastlowastlowast (0623) 1785lowastlowastlowast (0637)ARCERT 0756lowastlowastlowast (0213) 0803lowastlowastlowast (0201) 0956lowastlowastlowast (0266) 1127lowastlowastlowast (0242) 1151lowastlowastlowast (0308) 1286lowastlowastlowast (0403) 1301lowastlowastlowast (0424)GOVCERT 0974lowastlowastlowast (0359) 1006lowastlowastlowast (0362) 1128lowastlowastlowast (0412) 1315lowastlowastlowast (0437) 1346lowastlowastlowast (0464) 1385lowastlowastlowast (0502) 1402lowastlowastlowast (0521)ACACERT 0713lowastlowastlowast (0245) 0721lowastlowastlowast (0257) 0974lowastlowastlowast (0291) 1102lowastlowastlowast (0286) 1142lowastlowastlowast (0331) 1213lowastlowastlowast (0392) 1291lowastlowastlowast (0378)lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Standard errors of consumersrsquoWTPs are reported within the brackets Consumerethnocentrism and trust in organic labels are held at the sample average level
Journal of Food Quality 11
[8] National Bureau of Statistics of China National StatisticalYearbook China Statistics Press Beijing China 2015
[9] FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations) FAO Statistical Yearbooks FAO Rome Italy 2016httpwwwfaoorgfaostatendata
[10] L Probst E Houedjofonon H M Ayerakwa and R HaasldquoWill they buy it e potential for marketing organic veg-etables in the food vending sector to strengthen vegetablesafety a choice experiment study in threeWest African citiesrdquoFood Policy vol 37 no 3 pp 296ndash308 2012
[11] V Falguera N Aliguer and M Falguera ldquoAn integratedapproach to current trends in food consumption movingtoward functional and organic productsrdquo Food Controlvol 26 no 2 pp 274ndash281 2012
[12] R D Liu Z Pieniak and W Verbeke ldquoConsumersrsquo attitudesand behaviour towards safe food in China a reviewrdquo FoodControl vol 33 no 1 pp 93ndash104 2013
[13] F Soler J M Gil andM Sanchez ldquoConsumer acceptability oforganic food in Spain results from an experimental auctionmarketrdquo British Food Journal vol 104 no 8 pp 670ndash6872002
[14] R B Tranter R M Bennett L Costa et al ldquoConsumersrsquowillingness-to-pay for organic conversion-grade food evi-dence from five EU countriesrdquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 287ndash294 2009
[15] S Rousseau and L Vranken ldquoGreen market expansion byreducing information asymmetries evidence for labeled or-ganic food productsrdquo Food Policy vol 40 no 2 pp 31ndash432013
[16] F Napolitano and A Braghieri ldquoEffect of information aboutorganic production on beef liking and consumer willingnessto payrdquo Food Quality and Preference vol 21 no 2pp 207ndash212 2010
[17] C Hempel and U Hamm ldquoHow important is local food toorganic-minded consumersrdquo Appetite vol 96 no 1pp 309ndash318 2016
[18] I Olesen F Alfnes M B Roslashra and K Kolstad ldquoElicitingconsumersrsquo willingness to pay for organic and welfare-labelledsalmon in a non-hypothetical choice experimentrdquo LivestockScience vol 127 no 2-3 pp 218ndash226 2010
[19] E J Van Loo V Caputo R M Nayga J F Meullenet andS C Ricke ldquoConsumer willingness to pay for organic chickenbreast evidence from choice experimentrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 22 no 7 pp 603ndash613 2011
[20] B Roitner-Schobesberger I Darnhofer S Somsook andC R Vogl ldquoConsumer perceptions of organic foods inBangkok ailandrdquo Food Policy vol 33 no 2 pp 112ndash1212008
[21] G Vittersoslash and T Tangeland ldquoe role of consumers intransitions towards sustainable food consumption the case oforganic food in Norwayrdquo Journal of Cleaner Productionvol 92 no 1 pp 91ndash99 2015
[22] S J Yin M Chen Y S Chen Y Xu Z Zou and YiqinWangldquoConsumer trust in organic milk of different brands the roleof Chinese organic labelrdquo British Food Journal vol 118 no 7pp 1769ndash1782 2016
[23] J L Hsu and H P Nien ldquoWho are ethnocentric Examiningconsumer ethnocentrism in Chinese societiesrdquo Journal ofConsumer Behaviour vol 7 no 6 pp 436ndash447 2008
[24] G Hustvedt K A Carroll and J C Bernard ldquoConsumerethnocentricity and preferences for wool products by countryof origin and manufacturerdquo International Journal of Con-sumer Studies vol 37 no 5 pp 498ndash506 2013
[25] T A Shimp and S Sharma ldquoConsumer ethnocentrismconstruction and validation of the CETSCALErdquo Journal ofMarketing Research vol 24 no 3 pp 280ndash289 1987
[26] L Yan and H He ldquoEvaluation of international brand alli-ances brand order and consumer ethnocentrismrdquo Journal ofBusiness Research vol 66 no 1 pp 89ndash97 2013
[27] K L Granzin and J J Painter ldquoMotivational influences onldquobuy domesticrdquo purchasing marketing management impli-cations from a study of two nationsrdquo Journal of InternationalMarketing vol 9 no 2 pp 73ndash96 2001
[28] J G Klein R Ettenson and M D Morris ldquoe animositymodel of foreign product purchase an empirical test in thePeoplersquos Republic of Chinardquo Journal of Marketing vol 62no 1 pp 89ndash100 1998
[29] F Liu J Murphy J Li and X Liu ldquoEnglish and Chinese therole of consumer ethnocentrism and country of origin inChinese attitudes towards store signsrdquo Australasian Mar-keting Journal vol 14 no 2 pp 5ndash16 2007
[30] M Raskovic Z Ding V Skare ETH O Dosen and V ZabkarldquoComparing consumer innovativeness and ethnocentrism ofyoung-adult consumersrdquo Journal of Business Research vol 69no 9 pp 3682ndash3686 2016
[31] J He and C L Wang ldquoCultural identity and consumerethnocentrism impacts on preference and purchase of do-mestic versus import brands an empirical study in ChinardquoJournal of Business Research vol 68 no 6 pp 1225ndash12332015
[32] W Helga and J Lernoud $e world of organic agriculturestatistics and emerging trends 2014 httporgprintsorg251721willer-lernoud-2014-world-of-organicpdf
[33] R M Dawes and B Corrigan ldquoLinear models in decisionmakingrdquo Psychological Bulletin vol 81 no 2 pp 95ndash1061974
[34] J J Louviere D A Hensher and J D Swait Stated ChoiceMethods Analysis and Applications Cambridge UniversityPress Cambridge UK 2000
[35] G J Zhuang N Zhou and L X Zhou ldquoNational-brandconsciousness brand characteristics and consumer prefer-ence for indigenous brandsrdquo Management World vol 21pp 85ndash94 2006
[36] E Delgado-Ballester and J L Munuera-Aleman ldquoBrand trustin the context of consumer loyaltyrdquo European Journal ofMarketing vol 35 no 11-12 pp 1238ndash1258 2001
[37] R Lassoued J E Hobbs E T Micheels and D D ZhangldquoConsumer trust in chicken brands a structural equationmodelrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevuecanadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 63 no 4 pp 621ndash647 2015
[38] K J Lancaster ldquoA new approach to consumer theoryrdquoJournal of Political Economy vol 74 no 2 pp 132ndash157 1966
[39] J S James B J Rickard and W J Rossman ldquoProduct dif-ferentiation and market segmentation in applesauce using achoice experiment to assess the value of organic local andnutrition attributesrdquo Agricultural and Resource EconomicsReview vol 38 no 3 pp 357ndash370 2009
[40] D McFadden and K Train ldquoMixed MNL models for discreteresponserdquo Journal of Applied Econometrics vol 15 no 5pp 447ndash470 2000
[41] A Claret L Guerrero E Aguirre et al ldquoConsumer prefer-ences for sea fish using conjoint analysis exploratory study ofthe importance of country of origin obtaining methodstorage conditions and purchasing pricerdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 26 no 2 pp 259ndash266 2012
12 Journal of Food Quality
[42] Y Y Cai and J X He ldquoJoy and peace an empirical study onthe effect of positive emotion on the country of originrdquoJournal of Marketing Science vol 8 pp 76ndash87 2012
[43] D Ubilava and K Foster ldquoQuality certification vs producttraceability consumer preferences for informational attri-butes of pork in Georgiardquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 305ndash310 2009
[44] J L Lusk J Roosen and J A Fox ldquoDemand for beef from cattleadministered growth hormones or fed genetically modifiedcorn a comparison of consumers in France Germany theUnited Kingdom and the United Statesrdquo American Journal ofAgricultural Economics vol 85 no 1 pp 16ndash29 2003
[45] A R Hole ldquoA comparison of approaches to estimatingconfidence intervals for willingness to pay measuresrdquo HealthEconomics vol 16 no 8 pp 827ndash840 2007
[46] R Alphonce and F Alfnes ldquoConsumer willingness to pay forfood safety in Tanzania an incentive-aligned conjoint anal-ysisrdquo International Journal of Consumer Studies vol 36 no 4pp 394ndash400 2012
[47] J L Lusk J Brown T Mark I Proseku R ompson andJ Welsh ldquoConsumer behavior public policy and country-of-origin labellingrdquo Review of Agricultural Economics vol 28no 2 pp 284ndash292 2006
WTP for US-invested certifiers followed by Chinese aca-demic institution-supported Argentine-invested and Chi-nese government-supported certifiersis is the same as theorder of mean trust in different certifiers (3) Certification oforganic labels from their respective countries improvedChinese consumer preferences In addition academicinstitution-supported certifier exhibited significantly posi-tive interactions with foreign organic labels (4) Chineseconsumers did not show high ethnocentrism Howeverthere was a considerable discrepancy in the order of pref-erence for the organic labels among the ETH levels With theincrease in consumer ethnocentrism consumers showed asubstantially lower WTP for Japanese organic labels and asignificantly higher WTP for Chinese organic labels Con-sumer WTP for certifiers did not change significantly withthe increase in ETH with a slight increase for Chinesecertifiers slight decrease for US-invested certifiers andstability for Argentine-invested certifiers (5) e order ofpreference for different organic labels and that for variouscertifiers did not change with the increase in consumer trustHowever consumer WTP for each type of organic labelgenerally increased with the increase in trust It is worthnoting that the differences in consumerWTP among organiclabels and among certifiers decreased with the increase intrust
Overall Chinese consumers showed different WTPs fororganic labels from different sources due to consumerethnocentrism and trustese conclusions should serve as avital basis for food suppliers in their selection of certificationservices and target market positioning Moreover this re-search can not only serve as a guidance for the reformationof the certification system and development of the certifiedfood market in China but also provide information toforeign certification service providers when entering theChinese market
62Limitations is study had the following limitations (1)Our research was conducted during the period when Sino-Japanese economic and trade relations had cooled due to theDiaoyu Islands dispute and other issues is historicalbackground inevitably affected consumer attitudes towardsJapanese products or services to varying degrees usconsumer WTP for Japanese organic labels should betracked over a longer period (2) Countries-of-origins werelimited to the US Japan Argentina and ChinaeWTPs ofChinese consumers for organic labels from other countriesregions such as Canada and Brazil need to be further in-vestigated (3) Consumer trust in different organic labels and
certifiers were examined separately however trust was notexamined in regards to a specific type of organic label from aspecific type of certifier such as a US organic label issued bya Chinese government-supported certifier which should beexamined in future research
Data Availability
e data used to support the findings of this study areavailable from the corresponding author upon request
Conflicts of Interest
e authors declare that there are no conflicts of interestregarding the publication of this article
Acknowledgments
is paper was supported by the study of evaluation of socialwelfare of quality and safety certification policy for agri-cultural products in the new era in China a project of theSocial Science Foundation of China (Approval no18BJY153)
References
[1] S J Yin R Li L H Wu and X J Chen Introduction to 2018China Development Report on Food Satety Peking UniversityPress Beijing China 2018
[2] M R Darby and E Karni ldquoFree competition and the optimalamount of fraudrdquo Journal of Law and Economics vol 16 no 1pp 67ndash88 1973
[3] F Albersmeier H Schulze and A Spiller ldquoSystem dynamicsin food quality certifications development of an audit in-tegrity systemrdquo International Journal of Food System Dy-namics vol 1 no 1 pp 69ndash81 2010
[4] E Golan F Kuchler L Mitchell C Greene and A JessupldquoEconomics of food labellingrdquo Journal of Consumer Policyvol 24 no 2 pp 117ndash184 2001
[5] M Janssen and U Hamm ldquoProduct labelling in the marketfor organic food consumer preferences and willingness-to-pay for different organic certification logosrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 25 no 1 pp 9ndash22 2012
[6] S J Yin Information Asymmetry Certification Effectivenessand Consumer Preferences An Case Study of Organic FoodChina Social Sciences Press Beijing China 2013
[7] L H Wu S J Yin Y J Xu and D Zhu ldquoEffectiveness ofChinarsquos organic food certification policy consumer prefer-ences for infant milk formula with different organic certifi-cation labelsrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevue canadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 62 no 4 pp 545ndash5682014
Table 9 Consumersrsquo willingness to pay for certifiers based on different levels of trust in certifiers
Certifiers CTRUST1 CTRUST 2 CTRUST 3 CTRUST 4 CTRUST 5 CTRUST 6 CTRUST 7USCERT 1473lowastlowastlowast (0521) 1481lowastlowastlowast (0499) 1521lowastlowastlowast (0532) 1632lowastlowastlowast (0578) 1669lowastlowastlowast (0592) 1717lowastlowastlowast (0623) 1785lowastlowastlowast (0637)ARCERT 0756lowastlowastlowast (0213) 0803lowastlowastlowast (0201) 0956lowastlowastlowast (0266) 1127lowastlowastlowast (0242) 1151lowastlowastlowast (0308) 1286lowastlowastlowast (0403) 1301lowastlowastlowast (0424)GOVCERT 0974lowastlowastlowast (0359) 1006lowastlowastlowast (0362) 1128lowastlowastlowast (0412) 1315lowastlowastlowast (0437) 1346lowastlowastlowast (0464) 1385lowastlowastlowast (0502) 1402lowastlowastlowast (0521)ACACERT 0713lowastlowastlowast (0245) 0721lowastlowastlowast (0257) 0974lowastlowastlowast (0291) 1102lowastlowastlowast (0286) 1142lowastlowastlowast (0331) 1213lowastlowastlowast (0392) 1291lowastlowastlowast (0378)lowast lowastlowast and lowastlowastlowastdenote significance at the 10 5 and 1 levels respectively Standard errors of consumersrsquoWTPs are reported within the brackets Consumerethnocentrism and trust in organic labels are held at the sample average level
Journal of Food Quality 11
[8] National Bureau of Statistics of China National StatisticalYearbook China Statistics Press Beijing China 2015
[9] FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations) FAO Statistical Yearbooks FAO Rome Italy 2016httpwwwfaoorgfaostatendata
[10] L Probst E Houedjofonon H M Ayerakwa and R HaasldquoWill they buy it e potential for marketing organic veg-etables in the food vending sector to strengthen vegetablesafety a choice experiment study in threeWest African citiesrdquoFood Policy vol 37 no 3 pp 296ndash308 2012
[11] V Falguera N Aliguer and M Falguera ldquoAn integratedapproach to current trends in food consumption movingtoward functional and organic productsrdquo Food Controlvol 26 no 2 pp 274ndash281 2012
[12] R D Liu Z Pieniak and W Verbeke ldquoConsumersrsquo attitudesand behaviour towards safe food in China a reviewrdquo FoodControl vol 33 no 1 pp 93ndash104 2013
[13] F Soler J M Gil andM Sanchez ldquoConsumer acceptability oforganic food in Spain results from an experimental auctionmarketrdquo British Food Journal vol 104 no 8 pp 670ndash6872002
[14] R B Tranter R M Bennett L Costa et al ldquoConsumersrsquowillingness-to-pay for organic conversion-grade food evi-dence from five EU countriesrdquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 287ndash294 2009
[15] S Rousseau and L Vranken ldquoGreen market expansion byreducing information asymmetries evidence for labeled or-ganic food productsrdquo Food Policy vol 40 no 2 pp 31ndash432013
[16] F Napolitano and A Braghieri ldquoEffect of information aboutorganic production on beef liking and consumer willingnessto payrdquo Food Quality and Preference vol 21 no 2pp 207ndash212 2010
[17] C Hempel and U Hamm ldquoHow important is local food toorganic-minded consumersrdquo Appetite vol 96 no 1pp 309ndash318 2016
[18] I Olesen F Alfnes M B Roslashra and K Kolstad ldquoElicitingconsumersrsquo willingness to pay for organic and welfare-labelledsalmon in a non-hypothetical choice experimentrdquo LivestockScience vol 127 no 2-3 pp 218ndash226 2010
[19] E J Van Loo V Caputo R M Nayga J F Meullenet andS C Ricke ldquoConsumer willingness to pay for organic chickenbreast evidence from choice experimentrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 22 no 7 pp 603ndash613 2011
[20] B Roitner-Schobesberger I Darnhofer S Somsook andC R Vogl ldquoConsumer perceptions of organic foods inBangkok ailandrdquo Food Policy vol 33 no 2 pp 112ndash1212008
[21] G Vittersoslash and T Tangeland ldquoe role of consumers intransitions towards sustainable food consumption the case oforganic food in Norwayrdquo Journal of Cleaner Productionvol 92 no 1 pp 91ndash99 2015
[22] S J Yin M Chen Y S Chen Y Xu Z Zou and YiqinWangldquoConsumer trust in organic milk of different brands the roleof Chinese organic labelrdquo British Food Journal vol 118 no 7pp 1769ndash1782 2016
[23] J L Hsu and H P Nien ldquoWho are ethnocentric Examiningconsumer ethnocentrism in Chinese societiesrdquo Journal ofConsumer Behaviour vol 7 no 6 pp 436ndash447 2008
[24] G Hustvedt K A Carroll and J C Bernard ldquoConsumerethnocentricity and preferences for wool products by countryof origin and manufacturerdquo International Journal of Con-sumer Studies vol 37 no 5 pp 498ndash506 2013
[25] T A Shimp and S Sharma ldquoConsumer ethnocentrismconstruction and validation of the CETSCALErdquo Journal ofMarketing Research vol 24 no 3 pp 280ndash289 1987
[26] L Yan and H He ldquoEvaluation of international brand alli-ances brand order and consumer ethnocentrismrdquo Journal ofBusiness Research vol 66 no 1 pp 89ndash97 2013
[27] K L Granzin and J J Painter ldquoMotivational influences onldquobuy domesticrdquo purchasing marketing management impli-cations from a study of two nationsrdquo Journal of InternationalMarketing vol 9 no 2 pp 73ndash96 2001
[28] J G Klein R Ettenson and M D Morris ldquoe animositymodel of foreign product purchase an empirical test in thePeoplersquos Republic of Chinardquo Journal of Marketing vol 62no 1 pp 89ndash100 1998
[29] F Liu J Murphy J Li and X Liu ldquoEnglish and Chinese therole of consumer ethnocentrism and country of origin inChinese attitudes towards store signsrdquo Australasian Mar-keting Journal vol 14 no 2 pp 5ndash16 2007
[30] M Raskovic Z Ding V Skare ETH O Dosen and V ZabkarldquoComparing consumer innovativeness and ethnocentrism ofyoung-adult consumersrdquo Journal of Business Research vol 69no 9 pp 3682ndash3686 2016
[31] J He and C L Wang ldquoCultural identity and consumerethnocentrism impacts on preference and purchase of do-mestic versus import brands an empirical study in ChinardquoJournal of Business Research vol 68 no 6 pp 1225ndash12332015
[32] W Helga and J Lernoud $e world of organic agriculturestatistics and emerging trends 2014 httporgprintsorg251721willer-lernoud-2014-world-of-organicpdf
[33] R M Dawes and B Corrigan ldquoLinear models in decisionmakingrdquo Psychological Bulletin vol 81 no 2 pp 95ndash1061974
[34] J J Louviere D A Hensher and J D Swait Stated ChoiceMethods Analysis and Applications Cambridge UniversityPress Cambridge UK 2000
[35] G J Zhuang N Zhou and L X Zhou ldquoNational-brandconsciousness brand characteristics and consumer prefer-ence for indigenous brandsrdquo Management World vol 21pp 85ndash94 2006
[36] E Delgado-Ballester and J L Munuera-Aleman ldquoBrand trustin the context of consumer loyaltyrdquo European Journal ofMarketing vol 35 no 11-12 pp 1238ndash1258 2001
[37] R Lassoued J E Hobbs E T Micheels and D D ZhangldquoConsumer trust in chicken brands a structural equationmodelrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevuecanadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 63 no 4 pp 621ndash647 2015
[38] K J Lancaster ldquoA new approach to consumer theoryrdquoJournal of Political Economy vol 74 no 2 pp 132ndash157 1966
[39] J S James B J Rickard and W J Rossman ldquoProduct dif-ferentiation and market segmentation in applesauce using achoice experiment to assess the value of organic local andnutrition attributesrdquo Agricultural and Resource EconomicsReview vol 38 no 3 pp 357ndash370 2009
[40] D McFadden and K Train ldquoMixed MNL models for discreteresponserdquo Journal of Applied Econometrics vol 15 no 5pp 447ndash470 2000
[41] A Claret L Guerrero E Aguirre et al ldquoConsumer prefer-ences for sea fish using conjoint analysis exploratory study ofthe importance of country of origin obtaining methodstorage conditions and purchasing pricerdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 26 no 2 pp 259ndash266 2012
12 Journal of Food Quality
[42] Y Y Cai and J X He ldquoJoy and peace an empirical study onthe effect of positive emotion on the country of originrdquoJournal of Marketing Science vol 8 pp 76ndash87 2012
[43] D Ubilava and K Foster ldquoQuality certification vs producttraceability consumer preferences for informational attri-butes of pork in Georgiardquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 305ndash310 2009
[44] J L Lusk J Roosen and J A Fox ldquoDemand for beef from cattleadministered growth hormones or fed genetically modifiedcorn a comparison of consumers in France Germany theUnited Kingdom and the United Statesrdquo American Journal ofAgricultural Economics vol 85 no 1 pp 16ndash29 2003
[45] A R Hole ldquoA comparison of approaches to estimatingconfidence intervals for willingness to pay measuresrdquo HealthEconomics vol 16 no 8 pp 827ndash840 2007
[46] R Alphonce and F Alfnes ldquoConsumer willingness to pay forfood safety in Tanzania an incentive-aligned conjoint anal-ysisrdquo International Journal of Consumer Studies vol 36 no 4pp 394ndash400 2012
[47] J L Lusk J Brown T Mark I Proseku R ompson andJ Welsh ldquoConsumer behavior public policy and country-of-origin labellingrdquo Review of Agricultural Economics vol 28no 2 pp 284ndash292 2006
[8] National Bureau of Statistics of China National StatisticalYearbook China Statistics Press Beijing China 2015
[9] FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations) FAO Statistical Yearbooks FAO Rome Italy 2016httpwwwfaoorgfaostatendata
[10] L Probst E Houedjofonon H M Ayerakwa and R HaasldquoWill they buy it e potential for marketing organic veg-etables in the food vending sector to strengthen vegetablesafety a choice experiment study in threeWest African citiesrdquoFood Policy vol 37 no 3 pp 296ndash308 2012
[11] V Falguera N Aliguer and M Falguera ldquoAn integratedapproach to current trends in food consumption movingtoward functional and organic productsrdquo Food Controlvol 26 no 2 pp 274ndash281 2012
[12] R D Liu Z Pieniak and W Verbeke ldquoConsumersrsquo attitudesand behaviour towards safe food in China a reviewrdquo FoodControl vol 33 no 1 pp 93ndash104 2013
[13] F Soler J M Gil andM Sanchez ldquoConsumer acceptability oforganic food in Spain results from an experimental auctionmarketrdquo British Food Journal vol 104 no 8 pp 670ndash6872002
[14] R B Tranter R M Bennett L Costa et al ldquoConsumersrsquowillingness-to-pay for organic conversion-grade food evi-dence from five EU countriesrdquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 287ndash294 2009
[15] S Rousseau and L Vranken ldquoGreen market expansion byreducing information asymmetries evidence for labeled or-ganic food productsrdquo Food Policy vol 40 no 2 pp 31ndash432013
[16] F Napolitano and A Braghieri ldquoEffect of information aboutorganic production on beef liking and consumer willingnessto payrdquo Food Quality and Preference vol 21 no 2pp 207ndash212 2010
[17] C Hempel and U Hamm ldquoHow important is local food toorganic-minded consumersrdquo Appetite vol 96 no 1pp 309ndash318 2016
[18] I Olesen F Alfnes M B Roslashra and K Kolstad ldquoElicitingconsumersrsquo willingness to pay for organic and welfare-labelledsalmon in a non-hypothetical choice experimentrdquo LivestockScience vol 127 no 2-3 pp 218ndash226 2010
[19] E J Van Loo V Caputo R M Nayga J F Meullenet andS C Ricke ldquoConsumer willingness to pay for organic chickenbreast evidence from choice experimentrdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 22 no 7 pp 603ndash613 2011
[20] B Roitner-Schobesberger I Darnhofer S Somsook andC R Vogl ldquoConsumer perceptions of organic foods inBangkok ailandrdquo Food Policy vol 33 no 2 pp 112ndash1212008
[21] G Vittersoslash and T Tangeland ldquoe role of consumers intransitions towards sustainable food consumption the case oforganic food in Norwayrdquo Journal of Cleaner Productionvol 92 no 1 pp 91ndash99 2015
[22] S J Yin M Chen Y S Chen Y Xu Z Zou and YiqinWangldquoConsumer trust in organic milk of different brands the roleof Chinese organic labelrdquo British Food Journal vol 118 no 7pp 1769ndash1782 2016
[23] J L Hsu and H P Nien ldquoWho are ethnocentric Examiningconsumer ethnocentrism in Chinese societiesrdquo Journal ofConsumer Behaviour vol 7 no 6 pp 436ndash447 2008
[24] G Hustvedt K A Carroll and J C Bernard ldquoConsumerethnocentricity and preferences for wool products by countryof origin and manufacturerdquo International Journal of Con-sumer Studies vol 37 no 5 pp 498ndash506 2013
[25] T A Shimp and S Sharma ldquoConsumer ethnocentrismconstruction and validation of the CETSCALErdquo Journal ofMarketing Research vol 24 no 3 pp 280ndash289 1987
[26] L Yan and H He ldquoEvaluation of international brand alli-ances brand order and consumer ethnocentrismrdquo Journal ofBusiness Research vol 66 no 1 pp 89ndash97 2013
[27] K L Granzin and J J Painter ldquoMotivational influences onldquobuy domesticrdquo purchasing marketing management impli-cations from a study of two nationsrdquo Journal of InternationalMarketing vol 9 no 2 pp 73ndash96 2001
[28] J G Klein R Ettenson and M D Morris ldquoe animositymodel of foreign product purchase an empirical test in thePeoplersquos Republic of Chinardquo Journal of Marketing vol 62no 1 pp 89ndash100 1998
[29] F Liu J Murphy J Li and X Liu ldquoEnglish and Chinese therole of consumer ethnocentrism and country of origin inChinese attitudes towards store signsrdquo Australasian Mar-keting Journal vol 14 no 2 pp 5ndash16 2007
[30] M Raskovic Z Ding V Skare ETH O Dosen and V ZabkarldquoComparing consumer innovativeness and ethnocentrism ofyoung-adult consumersrdquo Journal of Business Research vol 69no 9 pp 3682ndash3686 2016
[31] J He and C L Wang ldquoCultural identity and consumerethnocentrism impacts on preference and purchase of do-mestic versus import brands an empirical study in ChinardquoJournal of Business Research vol 68 no 6 pp 1225ndash12332015
[32] W Helga and J Lernoud $e world of organic agriculturestatistics and emerging trends 2014 httporgprintsorg251721willer-lernoud-2014-world-of-organicpdf
[33] R M Dawes and B Corrigan ldquoLinear models in decisionmakingrdquo Psychological Bulletin vol 81 no 2 pp 95ndash1061974
[34] J J Louviere D A Hensher and J D Swait Stated ChoiceMethods Analysis and Applications Cambridge UniversityPress Cambridge UK 2000
[35] G J Zhuang N Zhou and L X Zhou ldquoNational-brandconsciousness brand characteristics and consumer prefer-ence for indigenous brandsrdquo Management World vol 21pp 85ndash94 2006
[36] E Delgado-Ballester and J L Munuera-Aleman ldquoBrand trustin the context of consumer loyaltyrdquo European Journal ofMarketing vol 35 no 11-12 pp 1238ndash1258 2001
[37] R Lassoued J E Hobbs E T Micheels and D D ZhangldquoConsumer trust in chicken brands a structural equationmodelrdquo Canadian Journal of Agricultural EconomicsRevuecanadienne drsquoagroeconomie vol 63 no 4 pp 621ndash647 2015
[38] K J Lancaster ldquoA new approach to consumer theoryrdquoJournal of Political Economy vol 74 no 2 pp 132ndash157 1966
[39] J S James B J Rickard and W J Rossman ldquoProduct dif-ferentiation and market segmentation in applesauce using achoice experiment to assess the value of organic local andnutrition attributesrdquo Agricultural and Resource EconomicsReview vol 38 no 3 pp 357ndash370 2009
[40] D McFadden and K Train ldquoMixed MNL models for discreteresponserdquo Journal of Applied Econometrics vol 15 no 5pp 447ndash470 2000
[41] A Claret L Guerrero E Aguirre et al ldquoConsumer prefer-ences for sea fish using conjoint analysis exploratory study ofthe importance of country of origin obtaining methodstorage conditions and purchasing pricerdquo Food Quality andPreference vol 26 no 2 pp 259ndash266 2012
12 Journal of Food Quality
[42] Y Y Cai and J X He ldquoJoy and peace an empirical study onthe effect of positive emotion on the country of originrdquoJournal of Marketing Science vol 8 pp 76ndash87 2012
[43] D Ubilava and K Foster ldquoQuality certification vs producttraceability consumer preferences for informational attri-butes of pork in Georgiardquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 305ndash310 2009
[44] J L Lusk J Roosen and J A Fox ldquoDemand for beef from cattleadministered growth hormones or fed genetically modifiedcorn a comparison of consumers in France Germany theUnited Kingdom and the United Statesrdquo American Journal ofAgricultural Economics vol 85 no 1 pp 16ndash29 2003
[45] A R Hole ldquoA comparison of approaches to estimatingconfidence intervals for willingness to pay measuresrdquo HealthEconomics vol 16 no 8 pp 827ndash840 2007
[46] R Alphonce and F Alfnes ldquoConsumer willingness to pay forfood safety in Tanzania an incentive-aligned conjoint anal-ysisrdquo International Journal of Consumer Studies vol 36 no 4pp 394ndash400 2012
[47] J L Lusk J Brown T Mark I Proseku R ompson andJ Welsh ldquoConsumer behavior public policy and country-of-origin labellingrdquo Review of Agricultural Economics vol 28no 2 pp 284ndash292 2006
[42] Y Y Cai and J X He ldquoJoy and peace an empirical study onthe effect of positive emotion on the country of originrdquoJournal of Marketing Science vol 8 pp 76ndash87 2012
[43] D Ubilava and K Foster ldquoQuality certification vs producttraceability consumer preferences for informational attri-butes of pork in Georgiardquo Food Policy vol 34 no 3pp 305ndash310 2009
[44] J L Lusk J Roosen and J A Fox ldquoDemand for beef from cattleadministered growth hormones or fed genetically modifiedcorn a comparison of consumers in France Germany theUnited Kingdom and the United Statesrdquo American Journal ofAgricultural Economics vol 85 no 1 pp 16ndash29 2003
[45] A R Hole ldquoA comparison of approaches to estimatingconfidence intervals for willingness to pay measuresrdquo HealthEconomics vol 16 no 8 pp 827ndash840 2007
[46] R Alphonce and F Alfnes ldquoConsumer willingness to pay forfood safety in Tanzania an incentive-aligned conjoint anal-ysisrdquo International Journal of Consumer Studies vol 36 no 4pp 394ndash400 2012
[47] J L Lusk J Brown T Mark I Proseku R ompson andJ Welsh ldquoConsumer behavior public policy and country-of-origin labellingrdquo Review of Agricultural Economics vol 28no 2 pp 284ndash292 2006
