Why Don’t Swiss Buy More Fair Trade Chocolate?

Abstract

Consumers often state that they are willing to pay a higher price for fair trade, but actual fair trade consumption remains low. An online experiment finds that Swiss respondents want to buy fair trade chocolate, but do not pay enough attention when buying chocolate. In addition, fair trade labels do not necessarily increase consumer awareness of production conditions. These results suggest that production standards should be made more salient in stores and may need to be supplemented by government regulations to improve the welfare of producers in developing countries.