Effects of labeling a product eco-friendly and genetically modified: A cross-cultural comparison for estimates of taste, willingness to pay and health consequences

As the demand for eco-friendly food produced without pesticides and environmentally harmful chemicals increases, the need to develop genetically modified (GM) organisms that are more resistant to parasites and other environmental crop threats may increase. Because of this, products labeled both "eco-friendly" and "genetically modified" could become commonly available on the market. In this paper, we explore in a Swedish and a UK sample the consequences of combining eco-labeling and GM labeling to judgments of taste, health consequences and willingness to pay for raisins. Participants tasted and evaluated four categories of raisins (eco-labeled and GM-labeled; eco-labeled; GM-labeled; and neither eco-labeled nor GM-labeled). The results suggest that there is a cost associated with adding a GM label to an eco-labeled product: The GM-label removes the psychological benefits of the eco-label. This negative effect of the GM-label was larger among Swedish participants in comparison with UK participants, because the magnitude of the positive effect of the eco-label was larger in the Swedish sample and, hence, the negative effects of the GM-label became more pronounced (especially for health estimates). The roles of individual differences in attitudes, environmental concern and socially desirable responding in relation to the label effects are discussed. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.