Understanding consumer attitudes towards ecolabeled food products: A latent class analysis regarding their purchasing motivations

Abstract

Ecolabeling is a tool used to promote and support moresustainable products by providing information that enablesconsumers to select products with better environmentalperformance. Ecolabels, therefore, can help create socialawareness around sustainable consumption and promoterespectful attitudes toward the environment, thus generat-ing responsible consumption habits among the consumers.This study aims to analyze the heterogeneity of consumers'motivations in the process of purchasing food products withecolabels. Additionally, it intends to study consumer typol-ogies regarding their purchasing motivations toward ecola-beled food products to determine possible differencesin socioeconomic variables, consumption, and consumerknowledge for these products. To this aim, a total numberof 419 questionnaires were collected in Spain duringJanuary–February 2019 and a latent class analysis was im-plemented to segment consumers. The main findings of thisstudy show three types of consumers (indifferent, com-mitted, and skeptical), which present different character-istics, especially regarding their level of knowledge andconsumption patterns.