The willingness to pay for organic and biodynamic wines in France

Abstract

In recent years, French consumers are increasingly concerned by environmental issues and demanding of eco-friendly products. Thus the market of eco-friendly products in France, including wines, is booming. This quantitative research, based on 172 surveys collected in France, aims to study the willingness of French consumers to pay for organic and biodynamic wines, especially to determine the surplus of price that they would be ready to accept for a wine certified by one of these two labels and to assess the influence of consumers’ socio-demographic and behavioural characteristics on this surplus. The results show that consumers are approximatively ready to pay 1 to 10% more for a biodynamic or an organic wine. For both types of wine labels, the willingness to pay of a consumer is positively correlated to his level of environmental concern, importance of eco-friendly farming, preference for eco-friendly products and perception of organic and biodynamic wines. Consequently, for a French consumer, higher is the level of these variables better will be the willingness to pay. Nonetheless, this willingness to pay for organic and biodynamic wines is not affected by the gender, the perception of ecofriendly products, the knowledge in the field of wines, the frequency of purchase and of consumption of wine, and the knowledge in the field of organic wines.