Stakeholder skepticism and pragmatic approaches for True Price labeling

Sebastian Malte Carlsson^1*Erik Hunter¹Edona Arnesen¹Anne Odile Peschel²Lennart Stein^3,4Benjamin Oebel³Tobias Gaugler³Mark De Jong⁵Amelie Michalke⁶John Thøgersen²

• ¹Department of People and Society, Faculty of Landscape Architecture, Horticulture and Crop Production Science, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Lomma, Sweden
• ²MAPP Centre, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Central Denmark Region, Denmark
• ³Nuremberg Institute of Technology, Nürnberg, Bavaria, Germany
• ⁴Chair of Sustainability and Applied Geography, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
• ⁵Southern Agriculture and Horticulture Organization (ZLTO), 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands
• ⁶Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany

The global food system generates considerable negative externalities like greenhouse gas emissions, soil degradation, biodiversity loss, and labor inequities. Scholars advocate for internalizing these costs through True Cost Accounting (TCA), which reveals food's True Price (TP) by reflecting the costs of externalities. Communicating TP to consumers via a True Price Label (TPL) has been proposed, however extant research lacks stakeholders’ insights into TPLs which are necessary for refining TCA methodology. This study explores the attitudes of nine value chain stakeholders across the EU towards supporting, adopting, and (possibly) improving True Price labelling in their organizations. Thematic analysis was used to identify stakeholder skepticism about TP calculations and price impacts as well as pragmatic solutions to mitigate externalities. Overall, the study reveals stakeholder support for TP as a policy instrument, however, more collaboration is needed between researchers and stakeholders when refining TCA methodology and TPL.