Natural or organic? How framing impacts choices of sustainable food and wine products

Abstract Purpose – The paper investigates the choice preferences of Gen Z individuals between products labelled as “organic” versus products labelled as “natural”. While the former category guarantees production standards set by EU legislation, no codified standard exists for natural products. Understanding whether consumers value the difference is important for policy and marketing reasons. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a between-subject laboratory experiment. Participants are undergraduate students from a medium-sized university, randomized into two conditions. In both conditions, individuals choose between a conventional product and a sustainable one. In the first condition, we frame the organic product as “organic”. In the second condition, we frame the same organic product as “natural”. We always refer to the conventional product as “conventional”. This methodology is applied to a choice regarding wine and a choice regarding food. Choices are incentive-compatible, as one participant is randomly selected in each session to receive the chosen product. Findings – We find no significant difference between the frequency of choices of the product framed as organic and the one framed as natural, neither for wine nor for food. Originality/value – The paper tests in a controlled and incentivized laboratory experiment the choice differences regarding products framed as organic versus products framed as natural. The results provide policymakers and marketers with a better understanding of the effects of sustainability labelling on consumer behaviour. The policy implications of our results, which we discuss in the paper, are relevant and multifaceted.