Credence attributes of agricultural and food products and their implications on marketing
Credence attributes of agricultural and food products and their implications on marketing

Summary/Abstract: Nowadays, consumers are increasingly sensitive to the conditions under which the food they purchase and consume is produced, cultivated and processed. Furthermore, consumers also incorporate environmental impacts, animal welfare concerns and other process attributes into food purchase decisions. More specifically, increased interest in production practices and technologies used in food production has been seen, specifically concerning irradiation, use of antibiotics, hormones, special feeders, synthetic fertilizers, herbicide and pesticide use. In the past years, perhaps one of the most controversial technologies employed in the food production is the use of genetic modification of food. These concerns are even bigger regarding practices or technologies and materials used in the produced food,, specifically for infants or young children, making labeling and marketing of products for such special-interest segments of the population an area of continued controversy. As a result, growing segments of world consumers seek improved quality, healthiness and variety in the food they are consuming. Accordingly, the demand of agro-food products possessing these characteristics is rapidly increasing, and the food marketing sector is responding to an increased level of interest to the consumer demand for products with an increasingly wide array of attributes. The needs of differentiation include factors related to experiential eating quality as well as credence attributes related to environmental and other social outcomes. But consumers often do not have enough information when buying goods with attributes that are aligned with the above mentioned issues, and it is often difficult for them to check the honesty of these claims. It seems that it is necessary to adapt marketing practices, since consumers demand the food to have certain credence attributes, and often, are willing to pay more for such food. In global agri-food markets, products marked as ”organic”, ”eco-friendly“, ”safe“, ”natural”, ”locally grown“, ”place-of-origin“, ”animal welfare“ and ”kosher“ are just a few examples of ”credence attributes“ food. Consumer preferences, concerns, fears, politics and beliefs seem increasingly to govern new food marketing opportunities based on the nature of food production systems.This paper attempts to advance knowledge in credence attributes for agricultural and food product, as well as to address the need of developing appropriate marketing approach in order to meet the increasing market interests in these products.

• Details
• Contents