Food labels (quality, origin, and sustainability): The experience of Czech producers

Abstract

Food labels allow producers to promote the unique selling points of their products and help consumers buy products with value-adding qualities. The aim of the present article is hence to explore Czech food producers' expectations and experience with selected food labels. The selection was narrowed down to enterprises that had succeeded in the certification processes within the food labeling systems of European quality and origin labels (protected designation of origin (PDO), protected geographical indication (PGI), and traditional specialty guaranteed (TSG)), as well as schemes that fall under the remit of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic, such as Klasa (Ceska potravina/Czech food, Regionalni potravina/regional food, and BIO). The research was made using an online questionnaire in January-February 2018, and was focused on determining possible discrepancies in expectations that the companies had before applying for quality/origin labels and their actual experience with the labelling systems, the benefits they had gained, and their overall experience with the labels. To compare the respondents' expectations and their actual experience, both the non-parametric Wilcoxon test and t-test were used. The results show that the respondents positively evaluated the effects of marketing communication, but their expectations had been higher than what they experienced.