Once a quality-food consumer, always a quality-food consumer? Consumption patterns of organic, label rouge, and geographical indications in French scanner data

Abstract The aim of this study is to analyze the behavior of French consumers with respect to food products under various quality labels (organic,label rouge,and geographical indications). In particular, we investigate if consumers who purchase once a product under a given label tend to purchase a large fraction of this product (and other products) under the same label. Using a large scanner database, the regularity of quality-food consumption is analyzed through the relative frequency of conventional and quality purchases. The respective roles in regular consumption of product attributes, availability, and household characteristics are then examined using a random utility model. Regular organic consumers purchase around 28% of the organic market value, with variations depending on products. We find that product attributes are more related to regular organic behavior than household characteristics. In particular, product availability and product family (vegetables, eggs, milk, etc.) play a key role whereas low-price organic products are not associated with more regular consumption. Acknowledging the existence of regularity in organic consumption and understanding its variation between product categories should lead public policies to more often target specific products in order to develop quality-food consumption.