본 연구는 국민 다소비 식품 중 하나인 두부를 대상으로 선택형 실험을 이용하여 식품자율표시 사항인 GMO, 영양성분, HACCP, 탄소라벨링에 대해 소비자들이 느끼는 경제적인 가치를 추정하였다. 이와 함께 표시 사항에 대한 구체적인 정보의 제공과 표시 방식이 소비자의 선호에 미치는 영향을 분석하였다. 표시 사항에 대한 정보 제공은 식품 안전과 관련된 GMO와 HACCP 표시에 대한 한계지불의사금액을 증가시켰으며, 소비자들은 문자 표시에 비해 마크 표시에 보다 많은 지불의사를 나타냈다. 식품 표시 중 특히 식품안전에 관련된 사항에 대한 정확한 정보를 제공하고 인식이 용이한 마크 표시를 이용하는 것이 사회 전체적인 후생의 증가를 가져올 수 있다.
The objective of this study is to estimate consumers' perceived value of voluntary food labelling. The voluntary food labelling is a recommended labelling system which provides additional useful nutritional facts to consumers, whereas the compulsory food labelling is a mandatory labelling system which should be marked on the label according to the criteria given by the Food Sanitation Act in Korea. As consumers’ preference to food labelling is different in each food category, we choose Tofu, one of the largest foods consumed in Korea, as a target product in a choice experiment. A choice experiment is designed to estimate the Marginal Willingness To Pay (MWTP) for various food labelling items, such as GMO (Genetically Modified Organism), nutritional facts, HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point), carbon footprint, and price. The consumers’ perceived values are estimated with respect to two ways: the value on providing informations about food labels and the value on the mark-type label for GMO. In order to develop profiles for the choice experiment five attributes, GMO, nutrition, HACCP, carbon footprint and price are chosen. The GMO attribute is classified into ‘GMO’, ‘no label’, ‘GMO Free’. The Nutrition, HACCP and carbon footprint attributes are classified into ‘no label’ and ‘label’. Lastly, the price is classified into four levels ‘1,500 Won’, ‘2,000 Won’, ‘2,500 Won’, and ‘3,000 Won’. The results show that the estimated MWTP (Marginal Willingness To Pay) for GMO and HACCP which are related to food safety increased significantly when the voluntary food labelling is provided to consumers: the value for GMO increased from 1,063 Won to 1,398 Won and that for HACCP increased from 1,192 Won to 1,230 Won. 그림 삽입 The increased values of MWTP of GMO and HACCP by providing additional information are 335 Won and 38 Won, respectively(Table 1). As consumers become sensitive to food safety, it is evident that providing proper and exact information on the food labels and educational materials is worthwhile. 표삽입 We also implemented a study on how consumers utility changes to the way of labelling for GMO. The mark-type labelling increased MWTP more compared to the print-type by providing additional information: mark-type label increased MWTP from 1,040 Won to 1,571Won and the print-type increased from 1,091Won to 1,126Won (Table 2). 표삽입 Consequently, there should be more public promotions for food labelling so that consumers make a right decision on food purchase by the help of food labelling information. Especially, the safety related food labelling should be notably marked on the package. According to the Food Sanitation Act in Korea, the GMO labelling is only needed when GMO ingredients are used in the products. However, more refined criteria are needed for GMO FREE label in order to provide consumers’ right to know and freedom to choose. The results of this study show that consumers are very sensitive to food safety related labels among others. Therefore, the government and food companies need to provide proper and sufficient information on food safety labels. This study only focuses on Tofu. Further studies are needed to generalize the findings in this study.