How disgust, anticipated product quality, and political ideology affect consumer judgments of food produced in the U.S. with undocumented immigrant labor

Despite the vital role that undocumented immigrants serve in getting food from farm to table in the United States, little is known regarding how consumers respond to knowledge that their food was produced by these individuals. We integrate insights from consumer behavior and political psychology to inform research regarding producer identity in food production. Specifically, three studies examine how exposing U.S. consumers to information about producers' (il)legal immigration status has an influence on downstream effects (e.g., decreased preferences, willingness to pay, disgust, lower anticipated food quality). In Study 1, we establish that consumers are not as likely to purchase and are less willing to pay for food products made by undocumented laborers compared to equivalent products made by documented immigrants, or local laborers. Felt disgust and anticipated product quality serially mediated the relationship between producer identity and product preference. Additionally, lowered preferences for products made by undocumented workers are especially pronounced for those who self-reported as high in political conservatism. We replicate these findings while controlling for workers’ country of origin (Study 2) and their perceived wages (Study 3).