Are the Innovative Electronic Labels for Extra Virgin Olive Oil Sustainable, Traceable, and Accepted by Consumers?
Simona Violino,
Federico Pallottino,
Giulio Sperandio,
Simone Figorilli,
Francesca Antonucci,
Vanessa Ioannoni,
Daniele Fappiano,
Corrado Costa
Affiliations
Simona Violino
Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l’analisi dell’economia agraria (CREA) - Centro di ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni agroalimentari, Via della Pascolare 16, 00015 Monterotondo (Rome), Italy
Federico Pallottino
Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l’analisi dell’economia agraria (CREA) - Centro di ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni agroalimentari, Via della Pascolare 16, 00015 Monterotondo (Rome), Italy
Giulio Sperandio
Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l’analisi dell’economia agraria (CREA) - Centro di ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni agroalimentari, Via della Pascolare 16, 00015 Monterotondo (Rome), Italy
Simone Figorilli
Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l’analisi dell’economia agraria (CREA) - Centro di ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni agroalimentari, Via della Pascolare 16, 00015 Monterotondo (Rome), Italy
Francesca Antonucci
Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l’analisi dell’economia agraria (CREA) - Centro di ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni agroalimentari, Via della Pascolare 16, 00015 Monterotondo (Rome), Italy
Vanessa Ioannoni
Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT) - Direzione centrale per le statistiche sociali e il censimento della popolazione (DCSS) - Servizio registro della popolazione, statistiche demografiche e condizioni di vita (SSA), Viale Liegi 13, 00198 Rome, Italy
Daniele Fappiano
Maticom S.r.l.-Via Carlo Spinola 5, 00154 Rome, Italy
Corrado Costa
Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l’analisi dell’economia agraria (CREA) - Centro di ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni agroalimentari, Via della Pascolare 16, 00015 Monterotondo (Rome), Italy
Traceability is the ability to follow the displacement of food through its entire chain. Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) represents Italian excellence, with consumers’ increased awareness for traceability. The aim of this work is to propose and analyze the economic sustainability and consumers’ preference of three technological systems supporting traceability: Near Field Communication (NFC) based; tamper-proof device plus Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and app; QR code tag plus “scratch and win” system and blockchain. An anonymous questionnaire to Italian consumers (n = 1120) was made to acquire consumers’ acceptability of the systems and estimating their willingness to pay additional premium prices for these. An economic analysis estimated and compared the technology costs at different production levels. Results show that 94% of the consumer respondents are interested in the implementation of such technologies, and among them 45% chose QR-code protected by a “scratch-and-win” system with a blockchain infotracing-platform (QR-B). The consumers interested are willing to pay a mean premium price of 17.8% and economic analysis reported evidenced an incidence always lower than mid-/high-production levels. The success of the QR-B could be ascribed to different aspects: the cutting-edge fashion trend of blockchain in the food sector, the use of incentives, the easy-to-use QR-code, and the gamification strategy.
