diff --git a/cmd/wekafsplugin/main.go b/cmd/wekafsplugin/main.go
index 95fecbef0..2bb334604 100644
--- a/cmd/wekafsplugin/main.go
+++ b/cmd/wekafsplugin/main.go
@@ -49,7 +49,6 @@ func init() {
 		file = short
 		return file + ":" + strconv.Itoa(line)
 	}
-	log.Logger = log.Output(zerolog.ConsoleWriter{Out: os.Stderr, TimeFormat: time.RFC3339}).With().Caller().Logger()
 
 }
 
@@ -82,6 +81,7 @@ var (
 	tracingUrl                    = flag.String("tracingurl", "", "OpenTelemetry / Jaeger endpoint")
 	allowInsecureHttps            = flag.Bool("allowinsecurehttps", false, "Allow insecure HTTPS connection without cert validation")
 	alwaysAllowSnapshotVolumes    = flag.Bool("alwaysallowsnapshotvolumes", false, "Allow snapshot-based volumes even when Weka cluster doesn't support capacity enforcement")
+	usejsonlogging                = flag.Bool("usejsonlogging", false, "Use structured JSON logging rather than human-readable console log formatting")
 
 	// Set by the build process
 	version = ""
@@ -107,6 +107,9 @@ func mapVerbosity(verbosity int) zerolog.Level {
 
 func main() {
 	flag.Parse()
+	if !*usejsonlogging {
+		log.Logger = log.Output(zerolog.ConsoleWriter{Out: os.Stderr, TimeFormat: time.RFC3339}).With().Caller().Logger()
+	}
 	zerolog.SetGlobalLevel(mapVerbosity(*verbosity))
 
 	csiMode = wekafs.GetCsiPluginMode(csimodetext)
diff --git a/deploy/helm/csi-wekafsplugin/templates/controllerserver-statefulset.yaml b/deploy/helm/csi-wekafsplugin/templates/controllerserver-statefulset.yaml
index 9f101709f..d44462644 100755
--- a/deploy/helm/csi-wekafsplugin/templates/controllerserver-statefulset.yaml
+++ b/deploy/helm/csi-wekafsplugin/templates/controllerserver-statefulset.yaml
@@ -121,6 +121,9 @@ spec:
           {{- if .Values.pluginConfig.allowInsecureHttps }}
             - "--allowinsecurehttps"
           {{- end }}
+          {{- if .Values.useJsonLogging }}
+            - "--usejsonlogging"
+          {{- end }}
           ports:
             - containerPort: 9898
               name: healthz
diff --git a/deploy/helm/csi-wekafsplugin/templates/nodeserver-daemonset-selinux.yaml b/deploy/helm/csi-wekafsplugin/templates/nodeserver-daemonset-selinux.yaml
index 422bd64f7..47addfb19 100644
--- a/deploy/helm/csi-wekafsplugin/templates/nodeserver-daemonset-selinux.yaml
+++ b/deploy/helm/csi-wekafsplugin/templates/nodeserver-daemonset-selinux.yaml
@@ -66,6 +66,9 @@ spec:
           {{- if .Values.pluginConfig.allowInsecureHttps }}
             - "--allowinsecurehttps"
           {{- end }}
+          {{- if .Values.useJsonLogging }}
+            - "--usejsonlogging"
+          {{- end }}
           ports:
             - containerPort: 9898
               name: healthz
@@ -186,4 +189,4 @@ spec:
           secret:
             secretName: {{ .Values.legacyVolumeSecretName }}
 {{- end }}
-{{- end }}
\ No newline at end of file
+{{- end }}
diff --git a/deploy/helm/csi-wekafsplugin/templates/nodeserver-daemonset.yaml b/deploy/helm/csi-wekafsplugin/templates/nodeserver-daemonset.yaml
index 3e8b30350..9a2c5b43a 100644
--- a/deploy/helm/csi-wekafsplugin/templates/nodeserver-daemonset.yaml
+++ b/deploy/helm/csi-wekafsplugin/templates/nodeserver-daemonset.yaml
@@ -64,6 +64,9 @@ spec:
           {{- if .Values.pluginConfig.allowInsecureHttps }}
             - "--allowinsecurehttps"
           {{- end }}
+          {{- if .Values.useJsonLogging }}
+            - "--usejsonlogging"
+          {{- end }}
           ports:
             - containerPort: 9898
               name: healthz
diff --git a/deploy/helm/csi-wekafsplugin/values.yaml b/deploy/helm/csi-wekafsplugin/values.yaml
index d9b4557e0..183d47eb6 100644
--- a/deploy/helm/csi-wekafsplugin/values.yaml
+++ b/deploy/helm/csi-wekafsplugin/values.yaml
@@ -36,6 +36,8 @@ nodePluginTolerations: *globalPluginTolerations
 nodeSelector: {}
 # -- Log level of CSI plugin
 logLevel: 5
+# -- Use JSON structured logging instead of human-readable logging format (for exporting logs to structured log parser)
+useJsonLogging: false
 # -- for migration of pre-CSI 0.7.0 volumes only, default API secret. Must reside in same namespace as the plugin
 legacyVolumeSecretName: ""
 # -- Optional CSI Plugin priorityClassName