An examination of the factors affecting consumer’s willingness to pay for sustainably produced and traceable honey

Abstract

The global market experiences the increased demand for high quality but also friendly towards the environment and social sustainable goods. In the honey market, there is an upward increase in demand for various types of sustainable and traceable varieties. The traceability of foods has been a major concern in recent times and people want their foods to be transparent and with safely enough for consumption. Blockchain and other sophisticated IT systems provide a real-time data recording and sharing capability that facilitates traceability. Consumers like traceable foods because it raises concern about food safety, consumption that is sustainable and ethical and an increased trust in businesses. The gain of insight about the willingness to pay (WTP) of consumers for honey that is produced with sustainable and traceable honey is very important for the understanding the dynamics of the market and the behavior of consumers, while contributing to the larger debate on sustainable consumption and production. This research investigated the factors that influence the willingness of Greek consumers to pay for sustainably produced and traceable honey. In order to test if the consumers that are familiar with the systems of food traceability are more likely to pay a premium for blockchain-traceable honey, invest in sustainably produced honey, and recommend traceable honey to others, several hypotheses were developed. In addition, it studied whether awareness of consumers' perception of traceability in terms of improving safety or providing more useful information enhanced paying more money for the purchase of organically produced honey. The study was based on the random distribution of questionnaires among customers. All questionnaire responses used were subjected to various statistical uses. The statistical results contradict the available literature as the findings showed an insignificant relationship in the hypothesis and the proposed relationships on the decision of buyer’s decision to purchase traceable honey through regression studies. This unexpected result contradicts the findings of previous research in the field, thus suggesting a possible deviation in the behavior or attitude of Greek consumers towards traceable and sustainable honey products compared to other markets or regions studied in previous research.