When less isn't more and more isn't less: is there an overlap between “protected designation of origin”, “mountain product” and “organic” in Italy?

PurposeUsing a generic cheese as an anchor product, in this study consumers' preferences for different EU quality schemes have been investigated. Specifically, the study aims to understand whether "Protected Designation of Origin" (PDO), "Organic" and "Mountain Product" labels are independent or if there are some synergies existing between them, questioning - at the same time - whether this alleged exchange of value plays a positive or negative role in terms of consumers' willingness to pay.Design/methodology/approachA discrete choice experiment (DCE) was conducted on 600 Italian consumers performing a random parameter logit model. The respondents were representative of the Italian population in terms of age, gender and geographical distribution. Consumers' preferences for the presence of "Organic" and "Mountain product" labels were assessed in the DCE, together with the effect of price, for both PDO and generic cheeses.FindingsConsumers are willing to pay a premium in price for "Organic" and "Mountain Product" per se, for cheese with and without the PDO denomination. Considering the interaction effects, results showed that the combined use of "Organic" and "Mountain Product" labels do not decrease consumers' intention to buy. However, when applied on a PDO product, these attributes generate a lower consumers' willingness to pay in comparison with the generic ones, highlighting a possible overlapping between them.Originality/valueDespite the abundant literature on EU quality schemes in many food categories, this study represents one of the first attempts to measure the interaction effect between different EU quality schemes.