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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Nutrition and Sustainable Diets
Volume 8 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2024.1449848

The Impact of Information Acquisition Ability on Consumers' Trust in Eco-Labels in China: Insight of Food Sustainability

Provisionally accepted
Yanyan Yang Yanyan Yang 1Fang Xue Fang Xue 2*Guanghua Qiao Guanghua Qiao 1*
  • 1 College of Economics and Management, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, China
  • 2 College of Accounting, Inner Mongolia University of Finance and Economics, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The lack of trust in eco-labels is a significant reason for the slow growth in demand for sustainable food, and reducing the information gap between relevant parties is a crucial means to improve consumer trust in eco-labels. In order to investigate the influence and driving pathways of consumers' information acquisition abilities on their trust in eco-labels, a total of 1,072 urban and rural consumers in Inner Mongolia, China were surveyed in this study, with an analysis conducted using the structural equation model. It was found that information acquisition ability, institutional trust, and label knowledge have significant direct impacts on eco-label trust, with impact effects of 0.270, 0.351, and 0.357, respectively. Additionally, information acquisition ability has indirect effect of 0.085 and 0.127 on label trust through institutional trust and label knowledge. Furthermore, information discernment awareness has a significant negative moderating effect between information acquisition ability and label trust. Therefore, when publicizing the certification system and label knowledge, cultivating consumers' information acquisition ability effectively enhances eco-label trust.Moreover, strengthening media supervision to ensure the authenticity and objectivity of information transmission is an important measure to protect trust in eco-labels. This study enriches relevant research in the field of food sustainability and provides valuable recommendations to promote sustainable food consumption.

    Keywords: Sustainable food, information acquisition ability, Eco-label, Trust, consumer

    Received: 16 Jun 2024; Accepted: 30 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Yang, Xue and Qiao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Fang Xue, College of Accounting, Inner Mongolia University of Finance and Economics, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China
    Guanghua Qiao, College of Economics and Management, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.