Promoting organic through nudging: Strengthening the EU organic logo in Finland, Flanders, the Netherlands and Sweden

The rationale of the project is to increase the competitiveness of European organic products labelled with the EU-organic logo with a three year campaign in Finland, Flanders, the Netherlands and Sweden. In 3 of these countries the market share of organic is still very small. In Sweden the market share is higher, but organic sales have slowed down or even decreased in recent years. In all countries a rather small segment of consumers, account for more than half of total organic food retail purchases.

There is a growing consumer interest in food products that demonstrate sustainability attributes, but consumers’ interpretations of what is considered sustainable food differs greatly which partly explains why this development has not had a powerful impact on the sales of organic foods. Furthermore, the profusion of sustainability and ethical labels for food exacerbate consumers’ confusion concerning the environmental and social impact of various foods. In addition, many consumers lack an understanding of the added values and many benefits that organic foods and organic food production bring which leads them to believe that those products are too expensive.

The objective of the programme is to increase the recognition and trust of the EU organic logo and to increase sales of organic food products in the 4 countries. The programme seeks to tackle these challenges by bridging the attitude - behavioural intention gap. In addition, the programme will focus on point of sale actions, supported by a publicity campaign. The point of sales actions are aimed at the medium organic buyers in the supermarkets physical and online stores and will use nudging techniques to promote the sales of organic products. Meanwhile, the primary purpose of the publicity campaign is to strengthen the recognition of the EU organic logo and the many benefits of organic food production in order to convince consumers that organic is a sound sustainable choice.