ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Nutrition and Sustainable Diets
Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1629395
Consumers' perceptions and attitudes toward a novel labelling framework for Underutilised Crops: A cross-national comparison
Provisionally accepted- University of Gastronomic Sciences, Bra, Italy
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Underutilized crops (UCs) offer significant ecological, nutritional, and socio-cultural benefits, yet remain marginalized in mainstream food systems. This study investigated consumers' knowledge and attitudes toward a potential label for UCs across three European countries: Italy, Portugal, and Germany. Through a cross-national online survey (n = 3,023), we examined consumers' familiarity with the UC concept, perceived social, environmental, and economic benefits, trust in a potential UC label, and willingness to buy UC-labelled products. Statistical analyses, including Mann-Whitney U tests, Kruskal-Wallis tests with post-hoc comparisons, and ordinal logistic regression models, revealed that declared knowledge of UCs is associated with significantly higher perceived benefits and stronger purchase intentions. Trust in the UC label emerged as the most significant predictor of willingness to buy, followed by socio-demographic and value-based factors such as education level, ethical concern, and food label engagement. Participants viewed the UC label as more closely aligned with the organic label than with the quality schemes of protected geographical indications and protected designations of origins. These results underscore the potential of a dedicated UC label to raise awareness, enhance consumer trust, and support more biodiverse and resilient food systems. The development of such a label should be accompanied by targeted communication strategies and participatory design processes to reflect the multifaceted value of underutilized crops.
Keywords: Underutilized Crops (UCs), Food labelling, Consumer perceptions, agrobiodiversity, Sustainable food systems, Willingness to buy
Received: 15 May 2025; Accepted: 01 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Bassignana, Bairati, Bruno and Torri. 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: Luisa Torri, University of Gastronomic Sciences, Bra, Italy
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