Perceptions and Implications of Product Sustainability and Product Authenticity in the Agri-food Sector: The Case of Organic Olive Oil in Spain

This paper investigated the consumers’ perspective on the concepts of authenticity and sustainability of agri-food products to understand if the producers’ and the consumers’ perspectives are aligned and if the perception of food product’s sustainability and authenticity can be considered as a response to food fraud. The research adopted a mixedmethod approach. By examining the literature and performing qualitative analysis, it identified the multidimensionality of the latent construct of product authenticity as well as the perceived differences between sustainability and authenticity concepts from the producers’ side. Then, the study performed an online survey on the organic olive oil product, in the Spanish context, to support the conceptual framework and test the developed hypotheses. The findings underline that food product authenticity and sustainability affect the consumers’ perception of food fraud as well as consumers’ willingness to pay and the consumption of organic olive oil. The study shows that product authenticity and sustainability concepts have distinct meanings from both consumers’ and producers’ perspectives. The study advances authenticity and sustainability literature, exploring jointly these two constructs and outlines several implications for practitioners.