Supporting mountain agriculture through “mountain product” label: a choice experiment approach

The valorization of typical food products contributes to local economy sustainability. The European Union introduced the optional "mountain product label” (European Commission, EUR-Lex 2014, European Parliament 2012) to promote the mountain economic system sustainability. Although some researchers have focused their studies on the mountain product label, at our knowledge, the mountain product label value has never been investigated before. The aim of the study is to assess consumers’ willingness to pay for a typical mountain cheese with different sustainable production characteristics, among which the “mountain product label”, using a Choice Experiment approach. More in detail, we tested as sustainable issues: the presence on the label of the mountain product certification (i), the organic certification (ii) and some animal welfare information (iii). We also investigated socio-demographic and attitudinal variables influencing consumers’ propensity towards the three attributes. The main results confirm the consumers’ interest for the mountain product label, probably for a renewed consumers’ interests for environmental respectful production process in food market and because the mountain territory is perceived as carrier of positive values. Moreover, also the other attributes, organic label and especially the indication on animal welfare resulted to have a premium price. Another result emerging from our study is the sensitivity of young people to the issue of mountain product brand and animal welfare, suggesting an interesting target to address.