Canadian Consumers' Willingness to Pay for Pork with Different Attributes

摘要

Consumers are interested in credence attributes of meat, including production practices, country of origin and food safety initiatives. Labels and certification assist consumers in identifying credence attributes they desire when making purchase decisions. To maximize returns from meat products, players in the meat supply chain (producers, processors and retailers) need to know the type of products, attributes and information consumers want.Research to assess consumers' willingness to pay for different pork chops (traditionally raised (TR), TR certified by farm organization, TR certified by government, Canadian Pork and Canadian Quality Assurance® (CQA®), an on farm food safety accreditation label) was undertaken. Willingness to pay is estimated from economic experiments with real pork chops (200 consumers in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada). Initial results suggest significant premiums for traditionally raised production, if certified by government, for the CQA® farm food safety logo and for the Canadian Pork logo. The results suggest that consumers find packaged fresh pork to have higher value when it has more labelling than is routinely provided in grocery stores.In addition to consumer valuation, hog grade, meat quality and consumer sensory quality of the pork chops used in the experiments was evaluated. Linkages between these quality indicators are examined as are the links between hog quality, meat quality and consumer purchase. The research is relevant to the pork industry in that it identifies the consumer value of individual pork chops, linked to hog, meat and sensory quality, to assist players in the food supply chain in maximizing returns from pork sales.