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BFJ 115,1

Impact of corporate social responsibility claims on consumer food choice

A cross-cultural comparison
Simone Mueller Loose
MAPP Centre for Research on Customer Relations in the Food Sector, Department of Business Administration, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark, and Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia, and

142

Remaud Herve
Bordeaux Management School (BEM), Bordeaux, France, and Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
Abstract
Purpose The study seeks to assess the impact of two different corporate social responsibility (CSR) claims, relating to social and environmental dimensions, on consumers wine choice across international markets. It analyses how point of purchase CSR claims compete with other food claims and their awareness, penetration and consumers trust are examined. Design/methodology/approach A discrete choice experiment with a visual shelf simulation was used to elicit consumer preferences and to estimate marginal willingness to pay for CSR and other food claims across the UK, France, Germany, the US East Coast, the US Midwest, and Anglophone and Francophone Canada. Findings CSR claims relating to social and environmental responsibility have a similar awareness, penetration and consumer trust, but differ in their impact on consumer choice, where environmental corporate responsibility claims benet from a higher marginal willingness to pay. Consumer valuation of CSR claims signicantly differs across international markets, but is consistently lower than for organic claims. Originality/value This is the rst cross-national study that analyses the impact of CSR claims on consumer food choice relative to other food claims using large representative consumer samples. The strength of the paper also pertains to the utilisation of innovative choice experiments covering a large range of choice relevant product attributes. Keywords Discrete choice experiment, Food claims, Organic foods, Environmental responsible, Socially responsible, Carbon zero, Food, Consumers, Social responsibility, Consumer behaviour, Cross-cultural studies Paper type Research paper

British Food Journal Vol. 115 No. 1, 2013 pp. 142-161 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0007-070X DOI 10.1108/00070701311289920

This research project was funded by the Association Vins de Pays dOc IGP and the European Union. The authors thank Linda Filone at Vins de Pays dOc IGP and Dr Yann Chabin from Dycia Sarl for the realisation of this project. Two anonymous reviewers are thanked for their valuable suggestions.

1. Introduction The past 20 years have witnessed the development of a research stream investigating how corporate social responsibility (CSR) can support the marketing of a company and its products to consumers. Despite this enduring research interest, only few studies have examined the impact of CSR efforts on consumer product valuation (Taneja et al., 2011). Knowledge about the impact of CSR communication on consumer behaviour would provide companies with valuable information to justify, manage and communicate their CSR activities (Wood, 2010; Du et al., 2010). Of those studies existing, most either examine the effect of CSR for durable goods and services (Auger et al., 2003; Salmones et al., 2005) or mainly use student samples (Brown and Dacin, 1997; Russell and Russell, 2010), for which effects sizes cannot be assumed to be representative of actual consumers (Peterson, 2001). Specically for the food sector, Hartmann (2011) provides an extensive review of corporate social responsibility studies and concludes that there still is no clear answer when, how and why consumers respond to corporate responsibility (Hartmann, 2011, p. 304). This research contributes to the existing body of knowledge by examining the impact of point of purchase information on social and environmental responsibility, on consumers food choices across seven international markets. 1.1 Concept and international dimensions of corporate social responsibility The concept of CSR can be broadly dened as a companys status and activities with respect to its perceived societal or, at least stakeholder obligations (Brown and Dacin, 1997), but there are a large number of competing denitions, both within and across different countries (Carroll, 1999; Dahlsrud, 2008). For instance, in the UK denitions of CSR range from the Confederation of British Industrys statement in 2001 that CSR is highly subjective and therefore does not allow for a universally applicable denition (Jones et al., 2007 p. 583) to the considerably wider denition that CSR is the obligation of a rm, beyond that required by law or economics, to pursue long term goals that are good for society (Crowther and Jatana, 2005, p. 31). The origins of CSR can be traced back to business ethics under liberal and deregulated market conditions in the US in the 1950s (Walther et al., 2010). In contrast, the concept of CSR was only very recently introduced in traditionally more highly regulated continental European markets, such as Germany and France, where formal state regulations stipulated many of the obligations governed by CSR (Schoenheit et al., 2007). In fact, the concept of CSR has been controversially debated over the last 40 years and several facets of CSR are argued to exclusively lie in the domain of democratically nabou and Tirole, 2010). legitimised governments (Be In France, there is no specic strategic managerial approach and denition of CSR. The concept is broadly understood as practices and views that enlarge the numbers of stakeholders in the businesses management process (Dupuis, 2008), with greater rez, 2005). One considerations given to the management of economic externalities (Pe major shift in the way CSR is practiced in France relates to managerial behaviour as the manager is increasingly seen responsible and attentive to his/her internal and rez, 2005) managing the company as the family man. external business partners, (Pe In Germany, the English term CSR was only established by the European Union in the early 2000s and gradually replaced the more colloquial business term

Impact of CSR claims on food choice 143

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verantwortliches Unternehmerverhalten (Schoenheit et al., 2007). German consumers are mainly still unaware of the precise meaning of this term and perceive CSR as diffuse concept, comprehending a broad palette of subjective social, environmental, economic and ethical corporate responsibilities (Walther et al., 2010). Securing employment in Germany and environmental aspects are perceived as most important aspects of CSR by German consumers (Schoenheit et al., 2007). The concept of stakeholders is central to most CSR denitions and investors, employees, supply chain partners, government, communities and the general society were referred as potential stakeholders besides a companys customers (Taneja et al., 2011; Cronin et al., 2011). Although the number and importance of these stakeholders differs across countries and supply chains (Maloni and Brown, 2006), the nal consumer stakeholder group are the focus of this research. CSR has become an established umbrella term and according to Carroll (1999) is an overlapping concept with business ethics, stakeholder management and sustainability. Within the multidimensional conception of CSR two key issues of social and environmental responsibility have been identied repeatedly (Lindgreen et al., 2009; Lockett et al., 2006). Thereby environmental responsibility mainly relates to corporate activities protecting and/or not harming the natural environment and social responsibility comprehends initiatives that protect social welfare of key stakeholders (Bhattacharya and Sen, 2004). Adopting this two-dimensional concept of CSR, this study examines the effect of communicating social and environmental responsibility on consumer food choice. 1.2 Communication of CSR to consumers A number of key issues were identied affecting whether a companys CSR activities translate into consumer purchases. The majority of these issues relate to communication, such as the creation of consumer awareness of companies CSR actions (Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001) and the effective communication of appropriate message content through suitable message channels (Du et al., 2010). According Lindgreen and Swaen (2010), what to say and how to say it are still mainly unresolved questions in CSR research. So far companies CSR communication is still mainly conned to the internet and corporate reports (Wanderley et al., 2008). There exists a wide range of potential communication channels for CSR messages and point of purchase information was highlighted by Du et al. (2010) as a viable alternative to advertising, PR, media coverage and corporate websites. The majority of food and agricultural products are sold in retail settings, where product on-package claims and labelling, or retailer shelf information are effective communication means (Kiesel and Villas-Boas, 2011; Berning et al., 2010; Allenby and Ginter, 1995). For most food producers, such as small and medium enterprise wine producers, product packaging claims and point of purchase information are the most important consumer communication channels (Ahvenainen and Hurme, 1997). Regarding its content, particularly CSR communication about social activities was found to potentially trigger stakeholders scepticism and cynicism (Schlegelmilch and Pollach, 2005) and trust has been identied as an important mediator for consumer acceptance of environmental claims (Koos, 2011; Groza et al., 2011). Overall, it is still

unknown, to what degree point of purchase information in the form of food claims regarding social and environmental responsibility can impact consumers food choice. 1.3 Competition of CSR with existing food claims When CSR is communicated to food consumers via on-package information or retail shelf talkers, it is likely to compete with a plethora of other existing food claims, such as health information, organic and nutritional claims. Research into consumers food values (Lusk and Briggeman, 2009) provides the rst indication for the potential competitive positioning CSR claims might adopt among other food claims. From the 11 food values identied by Lusk and Briggeman (2009) safety, taste, nutrition and price were most important to US consumers, while environmental impact and social fairness only ranked as fth and tenth most important. It therefore could be expected that consumers are more strongly impacted by food claims, which are related to the most important food values and therefore will have a lower valuation for social rather than for environmental CSR claims. Organic is a food claim, which has considerably increased in consumer awareness, purchase penetration and research interest over the last decade. The organic claim has a singular position among all food claims as it uniquely combines a number of important food associations, such as food safety (Harper and Makatouni, 2002), better taste (Chryssohoidis and Krystallis, 2005), healthiness (Bech-Larsen and Grunert, 2003), environmental benets (Magnusson et al., 2003) and ethical concerns and fairness (Briggeman and Lusk, 2011). Consequently, from the consumer perspective the organic claim already covers benets associated with social and environmental responsibility and can be expected to be more highly valued. Over the last years a number of environmental food claims relating to resource specic environmental benets were introduced by retailers. Carbon labels or carbon footprints inform consumers about the carbon emissions during production and transportation (Beattie and Sale, 2009). Carbon zero claims are one specic form of carbon labelling, which signal that producers and/or retailers undertook actions to offset their carbon emissions, for instance by planting trees (Lovell et al., 2009). Point of purchase carbon labels were shown to have a signicant effect on consumer choice (Vanclay et al., 2011), but little is known about their effect relative to CSR and other food claims. Specically for glass packaged food and beverages such as wine, light weight containers were introduced by retailers and producers to reduce packaging ster, 2009, materials, transportation weight and carbon emissions (Colman and Pa WRAP, 2009). Overall, it is unknown how existing organic and resource specic environmental claims compete with social and environmental CSR claims. 1.4 Research questions Missing insights about the role of social and environmental responsibility claims on consumer choice led to two research questions. (1) What is the relative impact of social and environmental responsibility claims on consumer choice relative to other food claims?

Impact of CSR claims on food choice 145

Previous studies have identied cross-cultural differences, both in the extent of CSR corporate activities and communication (Maignan and Ralston, 2002; Habisch et al.,

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2011) as well as in consumers willingness to support responsible businesses (Maignan, 2001, Singh et al., 2008). Generally CSR has been found to receive less attention across European nations compared to the US. Furthermore, country differences in retailing organisation and penetration of environmentally labelled food (Koos, 2011) is likely to be reected in the competitive positioning of CSR food claims. While most CSR studies are still limited to a local context, Lindgreen and Swaen (2010) requested more research to adopt an international perspective. Following this request, the second research question was derived. (2) How does consumer valuation of social and environmental responsibility claims for food and agricultural products differ across international markets?

Wine was chosen as the specic food product for this study, because it is traded internationally in a relatively standardized format (750 ml bottles) and retail shelf information is a very common communication means for this product (Mueller et al., 2009). While the penetration of organic wine is lower than for other food products (Remaud and Sirieix, 2010), several wine producing countries have adopted national wine strategies, which use sustainability, environmentally and socially responsible positioning for competitive differentiation (Pugh and Fletcher, 2002; Corsi et al., 2011). Since a wide range of different food labels are currently used or could potentially be used at the point of purchase, wine was an appropriate product to examine the research questions in this study.

2. Material and methods 2.1 Food claims For the two distinct CSR dimensions of social and environmental responsibility two visual shelf claims were selected (see Figure 1). In the absence of an internationally standardised logo, a graphic designer developed the socially responsible claim for this study, depicting stylised persons reaching out to each other around the globe. In a pre-test this logo was signicantly related to the concept of social fairness. The environmentally responsible claim was taken from an existing environmental responsibility program protect the planet[1], showing a stylised person holding a large green leaf.

Figure 1. Food claims included in study

The organic claim contained a wine grape in a green circle with the written name on it. The resource specic environmental carbon zero claim was borrowed from the company Atlas Copco. The second resource specic reduced glass weight logo was developed by a graphic designer as a written statement with stylised bottle shapes. The social responsibility, organic and reduced glass weight claims where shown in market specic languages[2], whereas the existing logos protect planet and carbon zero were used uniformly in English across all countries. 2.2 Discrete choice experiment The methodology of unconstrained survey responses eliciting purchase intention, attitudes, satisfaction or product liking, used in most previous research on consumer valuation of ethical behaviour, was criticised for social desirability bias (Auger and Devinney, 2007) and the attitude-behaviour gap (Carrington et al., 2010). To reduce this potential bias these authors recommended using specic products, specic behavioural conditions and incentive compatible research methods. Discrete choice experiments (DCE) were repeatedly found to provide forecasts of high external validity as they force consumers to trade off desirable and undesirable product attributes (Louviere et al., 2000). Particularly for wine, consumer choices in a DCE with visual shelf simulations were found to be strongly related to actual scanner data market shares (Mueller et al., 2010c). The food claims were included as levels of one attribute within a larger DCE that contained a total of nine attributes with four to 16 levels. The selection of attributes was based on a literature review and advice from an industry advisory group to make sure that they covered those characteristics previously found important to inuence consumers wine choice. Thereby this study avoided bias from over-estimating the effect of food claims by neglecting other important attributes (Gao and Schroeder, 2009; Islam et al., 2007). The attributes food claim, price, brand, grape variety, French region/appellation, alcohol level, medal, bottling and sensory style were varied according a 16 86 42 orthogonal main effects maximum difference design in 128 sets (Street and Burgess, 2007) with a choice set size of ve. The design was partitioned into eight versions of 16 choice sets to which respondents were assigned randomly. Choice stimuli were presented in a visual shelf simulation to mimic a realistic purchase decision and to capture potential subliminal effects of label design, brands and other visual elements (Mueller et al., 2010b). The graphical simulation can represent shelves in a traditional brick and mortar supermarket store as well as an online wine store. Prices, sensory style and food claims were shown on a shelf talker in the upper part of the shelf. Price ranges were chosen specic for the market conditions of each country. Plate 1 shows a screen capture of the UK shelf simulation choice experiment. As situational condition respondents were instructed to imagine that they wanted to buy a bottle of wine to drink with their partner and/or friends. In each screen they were then asked to indicate the bottle they were most likely to choose and if they would realistically purchase their preferred bottle, representing a reference or no-choice option. Before the choice experiment, respondents were asked to indicate their awareness (yes/no) for the ve food claims in Figure 1, the degree of trust they have into them (structured ve-point scale with dont trust at all and fully trust as anchors) and if they had ever purchased a wine with that claim (yes/no).

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Plate 1. Visual shelf simulation choice experiment example for UK market

2.3 Consumer samples Based on existing ndings of geographical and cultural differences in the communication and importance of CSR to consumers, seven traditional or established wine markets with considerable per capita wine consumption were selected for this study. The selection covered four Anglo-Saxon cultural markets in North America and Europe (US Northeast New York metropolitan area, US Midwest Chicago metropolitan area, Anglophone Canada, UK) and two traditional European countries Germany and France. Francophone Canada was selected as a culturally distinct North American market with strong historic ties to France. Sampling was conducted in early December 2009 as an online-survey. The survey instrument was developed in English and then translated into German and French. An independent back-translation ensured that all versions were equivalent. A reputed online panel provider, actively managing large samples in each of the countries, provided nationally representative samples ranging between one and two thousand respondents per market (Table I). To qualify, respondents had to have drunk wine at least once in the last two months, had to have purchased a bottle of wine in the last three months, and were required to be of legal drinking age. 2.4 Analysis The awareness and purchase penetration measures were analysed for differences across the food claims and across markets with Chi-square tests. Responses to the trust scale were tested for measurement invariance across all markets (Steenkamp and Baumgartner, 1998), where scalar invariance could not be conrmed across all

Market Sample size Gender Male Female Age (18)a 30 40 50 60 29 39 49 59 75

US US Northeast Midwest 1,617 49.7 50.3 19.4 24.0 23.4 18.8 14.4 1,614 50.2 49.8 18.6 29.4 20.2 18.0 13.7 2.4 8.3 12.7 15.7 14.9 21.8 20.1 4.0

Canada Anglophone 1,036 46.5 53.5 16.9 19.6 24.5 21.7 17.3 8.7 23.1 22.2 15.7 11.3 6.8 2.3 9.9

Canada Francophone 982 49.6 50.4 21.0 26.9 20.8 19.6 11.6 16.2 41.4 19.0 8.4 2.6 1.3 0.9 10.4

France Germany 2,027 40.8 59.2 19.6 18.8 23.5 21.8 16.3 3.5 14.6 20.0 20.9 15.4 16.8 4.8 4.0 2,025 50.0 50.0 22.7 22.2 25.4 20.6 9.2 17.5 27.7 19.0 11.6 5.7 3.2 1.3 14.1

UK 2,021 52.5 47.5 21.6 24.0 23.6 16.6 14.2 3.7 14.4 18.1 18.1 14.1 15.5 6.0 10.1

Impact of CSR claims on food choice 149

Income in 1,000 $/e/ Under 20 18.8 20-40 37.1 40-60 20.8 60-80 9.3 80-100 3.0 100-150 1.5 150 and more 0.8 Not disclosed 8.8 Highest level of education Secondary school 20.7 High school 11.8 Professional education 25.6 Undergraduate degree 30.1 Postgraduate degree 11.8

1.2 14.2 31.2 34.4 19.0

11.6 22.8 29.6 24.9 11.0

3.8 16.3 30.0 25.7 24.1

1.2 20.5 37.5 28.1 12.6

22.2 19.5 27.4 30.9

7.0 14.6 25.5 40.9 12.0 Table I. Sample composition in percent

Notes: Lowest age determined by legal drinking age: 18 years in France, Germany and UK; 19 years in Canada, 21 years in US; total sample n 11,322

markets. To avoid biased results from inappropriate scale averages across markets, the data was analysed with appropriate nominal statistical techniques. The shares of respondents, who trust a claim (four and ve on ve-point scale) and those, who distrust a claim (one and two) were analysed with Chi-square tests. Responses to the discrete choice experiment were analysed with a conditional logit model (Louviere et al., 2000), after respondents who always choose the no-choice option were removed from the data set (about 5 per cent of total sample). Since part worth utility estimates cannot be compared across different experiments (here markets) because of differences in error variance (Swait and Louviere, 1993), marginal willingness to pay (WTP) values were calculated by standardising the attribute level utility estimates by the part worth value of price.

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3. Results 3.1 Claim awareness, penetration and trust The awareness of the claims differed strongly across claims and markets (Table II). The average awareness for claims across all countries was signicantly highest for organic (45 per cent), followed by both social and environmental CSR claims (around 15 per cent) and lowest for the resource-specic environmental claims (below 10 per cent). This relative rank order in claim awareness is consistent across all countries but highest absolute differences in awareness across claims can be observed for European countries. Awareness for social and environmental responsibility claims was highest in the US (above 20 per cent) and below average in the European countries and Francophone Canada, agreeing with previous ndings by Maignan (2001). In contrast, European consumers showed a signicantly higher awareness for the organic claim. Generally one would expect claim awareness to be a strong predictor for its purchase penetration (Sharp, 2010). Indeed, over all claims and markets the correlation between claim awareness and purchase penetration for wine is highly signicant (r 0:568; p , 0:001). Hence, the ndings for the purchase penetration of the food claims (Table III) closely reect those observed for claim awareness (Table II).
US US CAN CAN Chi2 France Germany Eastcoast Midwest Anglo Franco Average (df 6) 11.6 12.5 56.0 4.4 4.1 2,633.7 23.9 26.0 39.6 19.3 16.9 270.6 20.5 21.4 39.7 14.8 11.7 451.9 15.6 13.9 34.3 10.9 6.8 341.7 11.5 9.7 27.0 5.7 2.3 354.6 15.1 15.4 45.2 10.4 7.3 7,969.4 224.4 253.2 1,003.9 314.3 401.3

UK

Table II. Awareness of claims in percent of sample

Social responsibility 12.7 9.5 Environmental responsibility 13.1 11.5 Organic 44.4 75.2 Carbon zero 11.8 6.3 10 per cent less glass 7.0 2.5 Chi2 (df 4) 1,255.6 4545.7

Notes: All Chi2 are signicant at p , 0.001

UK

US US CAN CAN Chi2 France Germany Eastcoast Midwest Anglo Franco Average (df 6) 6.0 6.6 34.9 2.6 3.2 1,588.9 16.7 20.5 28.8 13.4 15.3 156.4 11.9 12.8 26.0 7.1 8.4 319.8 8.6 7.8 19.2 5.4 5.9 155.6 4.5 4.2 14.4 1.4 1.9 216.8 8.2 8.8 25.2 5.1 5.9 3,738.1 296.6 457.0 276.3 359.1 421.5

Table III. Penetration of claims in percent of sample

Social responsibility 6.9 3.0 Environmental responsibility 6.9 2.6 Organic 19.7 33.4 Carbon zero 4.1 1.5 10 per cent less glass 5.3 1.1 Chi2 (df 4) 413.2 2,096.5

Notes: All Chi2 are signicant at p , 0.001

By a large margin, organic is the food claim with the highest purchase penetration. On average, every forth respondent stated to have purchased an organic wine, but this share was higher in Germany and France than in Canada and the UK. Both CSR claims had a similar penetration, which was highest in the US Northeast and lowest in France and Francophone Canada. Wines with resource-specic environmental claims had only been purchased by a small minority in most countries, only the US Northeast being an exemption with shares of above 10 per cent. Trust has previously been identied as an important mediator for consumer acceptance of CSR and environmental claims. Table IV and Table V show the share of respondents across markets who trust and distrust the different food claims. Generally a stronger discrimination in respondents trust (higher Chi2-values) between the food claims can be observed for European countries. Also the degree of differentiation is higher for trust than for distrust. Not surprisingly, there are similarities between the degree of trust into a claim (Table IV), its awareness (Table II) and its purchase penetration for wine (Table III), reecting the complex interrelationship established between these three constructs (Pivato et al., 2008).

Impact of CSR claims on food choice 151

UK Social responsibility 21.6 Environmental responsibility 22.8 Organic 38.8 Carbon zero 21.2 10 per cent less glass 25.0 Chi2 (df 4) 230.9

US US CAN CAN Chi2 France Germany Eastcoast Midwest Anglo Franco Average (df 6) 19.8 21.0 50.5 18.4 21.9 769.5 22.2 19.6 48.7 12.4 20.7 841.9 40.3 41.1 51.7 36.5 43.0 84.2 32.8 35.1 47.6 27.4 37.1 153.5 25.7 23.6 35.5 22.4 27.1 56.3 29.6 29.2 38.7 25.4 25.1 57.3 27.4 27.5 44.5 23.4 28.6 1,703.8 284.4 339.0 152.5 347.1 350.0 Table IV. Trust in claims (trust . 3 on ve-point scale) in percent of sample

Notes: All Chi2 are signicant at p , 0.001

US US CAN UK France Germany Eastcoast Midwest Anglo Social responsibility Environmental responsibility Organic Carbon zero 10 per cent less glass Chi2 (df 4) 13.7 13.5 9.0 15.9 7.6 93.4 23.7 21.5 13.0 25.2 16.7 128.9 23.0 22.4 12.3 23.0 20.1 103.1 11.6 11.3 9.0 12.2 8.4 20.0 11.7 10.7 8.8 13.8 6.1 60.9 16.3 14.6 12.7 17.8 10.3 28.9

CAN Franco 12.4 12.2 13.4 13.7 12.4 1.7 (n.s.)

Chi2 Average (df 6) 16.1 15.2 11.2 17.4 11.7 330.5 214.4 190.5 44.4 177.6 282.2 Table V. Distrust in claims (trust , 3 on ve-point scale) in percent of sample

Notes: All Chi2 are signicant at p , 0.001 except for distrust in claims for Canada Francophone

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Organic is the claim most trusted and least distrusted and shows the lowest differences in trust across markets, agreeing with similar ndings by (Snderskov and Daugbjerg, 2011). About every second respondent trusts organic claims in France, Germany and both US markets, while trust is slightly lower in the UK and Canada. The trust into the social and environmental CSR dimensions is largely similar. For both CSR claims, the trust is signicantly above average in both US markets and below average in Europe, with Canada taking the middle ground. The share of respondents trusting the reduced glass weight claim is similar to that of the CSR claims but benets from a slightly lower share of respondents distrusting it. On average, the carbon zero claim shows the lowest level of trust and highest level of distrust, which is also consistent across the majority of markets. The low level of trust observed here concurs with similar ndings for carbon neutral labelling campaigns by Dhanda and Hartman (2011). 3.2 Impact on choice and marginal willingness to pay Because of space limitations the part worth estimates from the conditional logit models can only be shown here for the food claim attribute; estimates for the other eight attributes in the DCE can be obtained from the authors. The parameter estimates in Table VI show the expected signs and the price parameter is signicantly negative. In all countries, except Francophone Canada, no claim has a signicant negative part worth, indicating that consumers value food claims positively. Comparing consumers valuation for food claims across countries, Table VII shows the marginal WTP in local currency relative to the valuation of no claim, derived from standardising the part worth estimate for claims by the price estimate. In Table VIII local currencies were converted into Euro values to allow the calculation of an average marginal WTP across all countries. Finally, the marginal WTP for each food claim (Table VII) was related to the average price chosen in the DCE in each country (bottom row in Table VIII) and the resulting percentage valuation for food claims relative to the average wine price are provided in Table IX. Agreeing with ndings for awareness and penetration, the organic food claim receives the highest implicit valuation by consumers overall and in each market. On average over all markets, consumers were implicitly willing to pay 1.24e for the organic claim with strong variations across markets. The highest WTP relative to the price of wine was observed for Germany and France, followed by both US markets and Anglophone Canada. Comparing the WTP derived in this study to estimates from previous studies provides an indication for external validity of the ndings of this study. Barreiro-Hurle et al. (2008) and Brugarolas et al. (2005) reported estimates of 1.53e or 15 per cent and 16.9 per cent of the wine price as estimates for the WTP of organic claims for Spanish wine consumers. These values are close to the average over all markets of this study but are slightly lower than estimates for France and Germany. The estimates of two successive DCE studies for red wine by Mueller and Remaud (2010) of AUD 0.79 in 2007 and AUD 1.55 in 2009 indicate an increasing trend in consumer valuation for organic wine and are close to estimates of this study for US markets and Anglophone Canada. Overall, the WTP estimates for the organic claim in this study are congruent with previous ndings, indicative of the validity of the ndings presented here.

UK Standard error 0.013 0.019 0.019 0.018 0.017 0.019 0.019 0.018 0.019 2 0.077 * * * 0.020 2 0.156 * * * 0.003 2 39,916.0 1,458 1,413 0.032 0.020 0.019 0.020 2 0.151 * * * 0.020 2 0.175 * * * 0.003 2 48,929.8 1,879 1,834 0.066 2 0.076 * * * 0.019 2 0.083 * * * 0.003 2 42,391.3 1,511 1,466 0.016 0.028 0.234 * * * 2 0.065 * * * 0.019 0.017 0.019 0.038 * 0.126 * * * 0.028 * 0.052 * * 0.128 * * * 0.003 * 0.015 0.019 2 0.026 0.019 0.009 0.020 2 0.023 0.082 * * 0.149 * * * 0.002 * 0.019 0.019 0.019 2 0.081 * * * 0.019 2 0.131 * * * 0.003 2 49,955.4 1,909 1,864 0.063 0.027 0.230 * * * 2 0.068 * * * 2 0.072 * * * 2 0.037 * * 0.013 0.013 0.013 0.014 2 0.062 * * * 2 0.091 * * * 2 0.114 * * * 2 0.066 * * * 0.017 0.025 0.024 0.024 0.024 2 0.144 * * * 0.026 2 0.105 * * * 0.002 2 26,212.0 970 925 0.040

France Standard n error

Germany Standard n error

US Eastcoast Standard n error

US Midwest Standard n error

CAN Anglo Standard n error

CAN Franco Standard n error 2 0.007 2 0.036 0.029 0.049 * 0.057 * 0.017 0.025 0.025 0.025 0.025 2 0.092 * * * 0.026 2 0.123 * * * 0.003 2 24,944.7 951 906 0.064

2 0.034 * *

2 0.025

0.035 0.049 * * 0.041 *

No claim Social responsibility Environmental responsibility Organic Carbon zero 10 per cent less glass Price Log-likelihood Cases DF r2

2 0.066 * * 0.019 2 0.369 * * * 0.005 2 49,916.9 1,836 1,791 0.072

Notes: *p , 0.05; * *p , 0.01; * * *p , 0.001; r2 relates to the full model; attribute levels are effects coded

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Table VI. Part worth utility estimates for food claim levels from conditional logit model

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Although social and environmental responsibility claims had highly comparable awareness and penetration and similar consumer trust (see section 3.1), their relative valuation by consumers differs signicantly. On average, the marginal WTP for environmentally responsible CSR claim is about three times as high as for the specic socially responsible claim analysed here, accounting for 6.6 per cent and 2.3 per cent of the overall wine price respectively. While the WTP for environmental responsibility is non-negative across all markets, it is negative for the socially responsible claim in France and Francophone Canada. The similar cultural background of these two

UK Social responsibility Environmental responsibility Organic Carbon zero 10 per cent less glass

France

US Germany Eastcoast 0.44 e e e e e $0.78 $1.55 $2.61 $1.43 $0.17

US Midwest $0.79 $1.06 $1.55 $0.75 $0.24

CAN Anglo $0.42 $1.41 $2.05 $0.65 2 $0.74

CAN Franco 2 $0.23 $0.30 $0.46 $0.52 2 $0.69

0.03 2 0.27 e 0.19 0.49 0.23 2.04 0.20 2 0.24 2 0.09 2 0.34

Table VII. Absolute marginal willingness to pay for food claim (relative to no claim) in local currency

e 0.51 e 1.69 e 2 0.02 e 2 0.51

Notes: US: $ USD, CAN: $ CAD

UK Social responsibility Environmental responsibility Organic Carbon zero 10 per cent less glass Average price chosen in DCE

France

US US Germany Eastcoast Midwest 0.44 e 0.56 e 1.10 e 1.86 e 1.02 e 0.12 e $14.85 10.56 e 0.56 e 0.76 e 1.10 e 0.53 e

CAN Anglo

CAN Franco Average 0.21 e 0.61 e 1.24 e 0.33 e

0.03 e 2 0.27 e

0.28 e 2 0.16 e 0.96 e 1.39 e 0.44 e 0.20 e 0.31 e 0.36 e

Table VIII. Absolute marginal willingness to pay for food claim in Euro and average price chosen in DCE

0.22 e 0.49 e 0.51 e 0.26 e 2.04 e 1.69 e 0.23 e 2 0.24 e 2 0.02 e 2 0.10 e 2 0.34 e 2 0.51 e 5.94 7.82 e 6.27 e 6.82 e 7.82 e 6.27 e

0.17 e 2 0.50 e 2 0.47 e 2 0.23 e $14.50 $16.04 $15.94 10.31 e 10.88 e 10.81 e

Notes: Exchange rate at time of study (December 2009): 1 1.15e, 1USD 0.71e, 1CAD 0.68e

UK Table IX. Relative marginal willingness to pay for food claim as percentage of average price chosen in DCE Social responsibility 0.5 Environmental responsibility 3.2 Organic 3.8 Carbon zero 3.4 10 per cent less glass 2 1.4

US US France Germany Eastcoast Midwest 2 3.4 6.3 26.1 2 3.1 2 4.3 7.0 8.2 27.0 2 0.3 2 8.1 5.3 10.4 17.6 9.6 1.2 5.4 7.3 10.7 5.2 1.7

CAN Anglo 2.6 8.8 12.8 4.0 2 4.6

CAN Franco 2 1.5 1.9 2.9 3.3 2 4.3

Average 2.3 6.6 14.4 3.2 2 2.9

markets rejecting social CSR claims suggests that cultural differences in the perceived importance and valuation of CSR activities and claims are important drivers, congruent with similar ndings by Maignan (2001; Maignan and Ralston, 2002) and Singh et al. (2008) and agreeing with the rather managerial than consumer centric denition of CSR in France discussed in section 1.1. The absolute Euro valuation of the socially responsible CSR claim is highest in both US markets, where CSR has its traditional roots, followed by Germany and Anglophone Canada. Surprisingly, German consumers were willing to pay the highest relative premium for social responsibility of all markets. A relatively similar rank order can be observed for the price premium consumers are willing to pay for the environmental CSR claim, which is highest in absolute terms for the US Eastcoast, Anglophone Canada and the US Westcoast. The resource specic environmental claims were found to have the least impact on consumer wine choice, reected in their low relative marginal WTP. Consumer evaluation of these claims is very heterogeneous across markets and signicantly negative in some of them. Overall, the reduced glass weight is strongly disliked by most consumers, resulting in strong price discounts. This nding is interesting as large supermarket chains in the UK have signicantly reduced the average glass weight for wine (WRAP, 2009) without communicating this directly to their consumers. Consumer concerns about a higher probability of glass breakage (Mueller et al., 2010a) might be one reason for consumers rejection of this claim. The carbon zero claim has received highest implicit price premiums from US consumers and is discounted by French and German consumers. The higher mistrust of consumers from these two countries (Table V) might be a possible explanation for this nding. 4. Conclusion and practical implications To address the research question, this study compared the inuence on consumer choice of two CSR claims, communicating social and environmental responsibility as shelf talkers at the point of purchase, to other competing food claims. Although social and environmental responsibility showed similar levels of awareness, purchase penetration and trust, they differed signicantly in consumer valuation. The implicit WTP derived from a choice experiment with visual shelf simulations was on average three times as high for the environmental than for the specic social responsibility food claim. This higher consumer valuation of environmental relative to social food benets agrees with previous research on consumer food values (Lusk and Briggeman, 2009). From a consumer perspective CSR food claims were conrmed to stand in competition with other existing food claims and are strongly dominated in awareness and consumer valuation by organic claims. Over all markets, the average WTP for the organic claim was more than twice as high as for the environmentally responsible CSR claim. Consumers have been found to associate the organic food claim with a variety of benets, including environmental and social fairness benets, which likely result in a higher salience and valuation than competing CSR claims. Regarding the second research question, signicant differences in consumer valuation, awareness, purchase penetration and trust into food claims were found across the markets analysed. Congruent with previous ndings, there appears to be

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higher consumer awareness and trust into CSR claims in North American, particularly US markets, relative to European countries, where the concept of CSR was only more recently introduced. While the price premium consumers are willing to pay for environmentally responsible claims was positive across all markets analysed, consumers demanded a discount for wine labelled socially responsible in France and Francophone Canada. The French interpretation of CSR as rather focusing on managerial practices than consumer communication is one potential reason for this negative consumer evaluation. If food producers have to decide between participating in the established organic production and labelling program and communicating their own CSR activities with according food claims, then the organic strategy will provide higher consumer valuation and the potential for higher price premiums. Producers also have to consider that considerable communication efforts are required to reach awareness and consumer trust into CSR claims that are similar to organic claims. If a company has to decide between communicating social or environmental CSR activities, then this study suggests a focus on environmentally responsible programs, which are valued higher by food consumers. Considerable differences were observed in the impact CSR claims have on consumers across different markets. International food producers are recommended to focus their communication efforts for environmental CSR activities in the US, Anglophone Canada and Germany. Social CSR activities should not be communicated with point of purchase claims in France and Francophone Canada, where they may lead to negative consumer reactions. Despite the contributions of this study, it was limited to wine of French origin as a food product and future research should seek to generalise these ndings to other food categories and different origins. One specic socially responsible CSR claim was chosen for this study and consumers reaction to other social claims should be tested. A higher positive impact of social CSR claims on consumer choice is likely for food products originating in countries with more prevalent social problems.
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About the authors Simone Mueller Loose is a Marie Currie Incoming International Senior Research Fellow at the MAPP Centre for Research on Customer Relations in the Food Sector at the Department of Business Administration at Aarhus University and holds an Adjunct Senior Research position at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science at the University of South Australia. Simones research focuses on research methods identifying sensory and non-sensory consumer choice drivers for food. Simone Mueller Loose is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: SimMu@asb.dk Remaud is a Professor of Marketing at Bordeaux Management School (BEM) and an Herve Adjunct Senior Research Associate of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science at the University of South Australia. His research focuses on both consumers purchase behavior is the Academic (especially for wine, spirits and seafood) and SMEs marketing strategies. Herve Director of the Wine MBA delivered at BEM.

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