Why freedom overwhelms us in the supermarket

Many people know the situation: You are standing in front of the milk shelf in the supermarket and feel latently overwhelmed. Conventional milk, pasture milk, hay milk, organic, Naturland or Demeter milk. And then there's regional, fair or with GMO-free feeding. "As an average German, Maria Mustermann only has to decide. How does she do justice to humans, farm animals and the environment?"

This is what Theresa Hartmann asks in her Science Slam text. Maria Mustermann is the protagonist in Hartmann's slam text. "Maria Mustermann feels overwhelmed by the sheer diversity of the product range. Her brain wants simplicity," Hartmann says. 

Out of habit, Maria ultimately reaches for the cheap no-name milk after all. Is she guilty of this? Or to put it another way: Is it the consumer's own fault that he wants the environment and social issues but doesn't buy accordingly? 25-year-old Theresa Hartmann's contribution about Maria's freedom convinced the jury at the Green Week in Berlin to award her first prize at the "Think Aloud! - GFFA Science Slam" of the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture e. V. (GFFA). Federal Minister of Agriculture Julia Klöckner took over the award ceremony.

"You decide" was this year's motto at the Green Week of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture. "The motto made my fingers itch," Hartmann says. Like Maria, he says, many consumers felt the same way. "I based my choice of theme on consumer psychology. Studies show that our brains are interested in simplification. But all the products, seals and stimuli in the supermarket overload it," Hartmann explains. "And how am I supposed to decide freely when more sustainable products are more expensive and harder to find?"

She argues that policymakers need to give consumers a framework. In her slam, she refers to a UN study. "Out of 1000 business leaders surveyed, the clear majority say free markets are not effective for sustainability." Her idea for this policy framework is straightforward: "I'm in favor of a simple label that indicates a minimum standard. For example, similar to eggs with numbers." That's why Hartmann is lenient with Maria at the end in her text: "Dear Maria, yes, you bear responsibility. No, you bear no guilt."

Hartmann, who is from Munich, studied organic agriculture at the Witzenhausen site of the University of Kassel. She made a conscious decision to do so, she says, after milking cows by hand for the first time during her volunteer service in Argentina. "After that, I first worked at home on farms". She currently works as a technical agricultural assistant at the Department of Agricultural and Food Marketing at the University of Kassel.

And what was there to win? "Fame, glory, the glass prize and a handshake with Ms. Klöckner," Hartmann laughs. But she had a lot of fun with the slam. She would have great desire to perform it on other stages as well. Green Week 2020 took place in Berlin from January 17 to 26.

Contact:

Theresa Hartmann
University of Kassel
Department of Organic Agricultural Sciences
Staff member at the Department of Agricultural and Food Marketing
Tel.: 05542 98 - 1283
E-mail: hartmann[at]agrar.uni-kassel[dot]de