Why Don’t Swiss Buy More Fair Trade Chocolate?
In front of the shopping shelves, Swiss seem to forget their good intentions. Yet they could help to improve working conditions for cocoa farmers, if only they would shop more consciously.
Consumers often state that they want to buy fair trade chocolate and are willing to pay more for it. But only 9% of chocolate consumed in Switzerland is fair trade. To get to the bottom of this paradox, Isabel Günther, Erwin Lefoll, and Marcella Veronesi (University of Verona) conducted an online experiment.
High trust, low attention
The results indicate that Swiss consumers trust fair trade products and are willing to pay more for them. However, a lack of attention at the point of purchase seems to prevent them from doing so because the label is not enough to remind them of the impact they could have on producers in developing countries
In addition, consumers do not actively seek information about the production standards of the food they buy from overseas.
Learn more about the experiment and the recommendations of the three authors in the Policy Brief DownloadWhy Don’t Swiss Buy More Fair Trade Chocolate?