Abstract The food industry increasingly seeks to differentiate food products based on sustainability assurances, the use of traditional or ‘authentic’ production methods, a unique origin, or an association with a distinct cultural identity, often relying on certification to enhance the credibility of a quality claim. The natural conditions of the Arctic circumpolar region, its pristine environment, and the relational tie to Indigenous cultures in many circumpolar Arctic nations, distinguish Arctic foods from other commercially available foods, however, little is known about how consumers respond to foods from the Arctic. This paper examines consumers’ perceptions of and willingness to pay (WTP) for foods originating from the Canadian Arctic, and their receptivity to certification for sustainability, authenticity, and origin in the presence of multiple credence attributes. Data from an online survey of 1342 Canadian consumers show that preferences for Arctic foods are driven by the unique geographic origin and a connection with Indigenous cultures and traditions, as well as a desire to improve social and economic conditions in northern Canada. A discrete choice experiment featuring Arctic char elicits consumers’ WTP for attributes related to origin, certification, wild vs farmed fish, and Indigenous vs non-Indigenous fishers. Random parameters logit and generalized mixed logit models allow for both preference and scale heterogeneity. The analysis informs strategies to promote the Arctic food system, both from a Canadian regional economic development context and across the broader Arctic circumpolar region. Limitations imposed by the current seafood labelling regulatory environment in Canada are noted.
Abstract Ecolabels address the asymmetry of information between producers and consumers regarding credence attributes. If consumers prefer a product with an ecolabel, the label will create product differentiation and a reduction in substitutability between ecolabeled and non-labeled products. Fisheries certification programs for sustainability have rapidly increased their significance within international seafood markets as a mechanism to create market-based incentives for improved global fisher...
Abstract Many transnational energy companies are engaged in the exploration and development of oil reserves in the Arctic, and are facing policy challenges in respect to benefit sharing with the local communities. Benefit sharing arrangements between oil and natural gas companies and indigenous communities were investigated in Nenets and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Districts, Irkutsk and Sakhalin regions in Russia and the North Slope of Alaska. We argue that Indigenous communities are not equally be...
Last. Mohamud Hussein(Food and Environment Research Agency)H-Index: 5
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Despite the growing use of country of origin (CoO) information and labels on food, the extent to which consumers really value this information is unclear. In an effort to understand this issue we present results of a hypothetical discrete choice experiment examining consumer willingness-to-pay for CoO information about meat and meat products. Our results reveal that CoO information is positively valued for all the food products we consider. However, it is relatively less important compared to ot...
#2Dániel Békési(WU: Vienna University of Economics and Business)H-Index: 1
Last. Péter Lengyel(University of Debrecen)H-Index: 6
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Reflecting the growing interest from both consumers and policymakers, and building on recent developments in Willingness to Pay (WTP) methodologies, we evaluate consumer preferences for an archetypal traditional food product. Specifically we draw on stated preference data from a discrete choice experiment, considering the traditional Hungarian mangalitza salami. A WTP space specification of the generalized multinomial logit model is employed, which accounts for not only heterogeneity in preferen...
#2Nick Hanley(St And: University of St Andrews)H-Index: 83
Last. Jacob LaRiviere(UT: University of Tennessee)H-Index: 8
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This paper develops a reduced form method of controlling for differences in information sets of subjects in public good discrete choice models, using stated preference data. The main contribution of our method comes from accounting for the effect of information provided during a survey on the mean and the variance of individual-specific scale parameters. In this way we incorporate both scale heterogeneity as well as observed and unobserved preference heterogeneity to investigate differences acro...
The second edition of this popular book brings students fully up to date with the latest methods and techniques in choice analysis. Comprehensive yet accessible, it offers a unique introduction to anyone interested in understanding how to model and forecast the range of choices made by individuals and groups. In addition to a complete rewrite of several chapters, new topics covered include ordered choice, scaled MNL, generalized mixed logit, latent class models, group decision making, heuristics...
Last. Wim Verbeke(UGent: Ghent University)H-Index: 97
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There are various sustainability certifications and claims for food products that focus on environmental or ethical benefits. These claims empower consumers to make informed purchasing decisions that take environmental and ethical considerations into account. This paper compares consumers’ preferences for four types of sustainability claims related to organic meat, free range, animal welfare and carbon footprint. Using a choice experiment on a chicken breast product, our results show that nine i...
#2Sophie Hieke(European Food Information Council)H-Index: 13
Last. Josephine Wills(European Food Information Council)H-Index: 19
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This study investigates the relationship between consumer motivation, understanding and use of sustainability labels on food products (both environmental and ethical labels), which are increasingly appearing on food products. Data was collected by means of an online survey implemented in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and Poland, with a total sample size of 4408 respondents. Respondents expressed medium high to high levels of concern with sustainability issues at the general level, but ...
The use of seafood ecolabels is expanding in the world marketplace, but so are labels indicating other product attributes, such as country of origin and wild vs. farmed. The interactive effects of these labels and attributes in evaluating consumers’ preferences for ecolabeled seafood are relatively unexplored. In this paper we investigate (1) the direct and interactive effects of seafood ecolabels with other common fish labels, and (2) how consumers’ perceptions about the state of marine stocks ...
Today, depending on topic, goal and budget, all kinds of sampling methods are being used, in order to collect consumer data for research in the wine business. However, it is questionable which survey method is able to generate data that does represent the entire population. A representative face-to-face survey with 2000 respondents and a telephone survey with 1000 respondents were compared with two online surveys, one based on quota sampling (2000) and the other on snowball sampling (3000) using...
Agri-food systems (AFS) have been central in the debate on sustainable development. Despite this growing interest in AFS, comprehensive analyses of the scholarly literature are hard to find. Therefore, the present systematic review delineated the contours of this growing research strand and analyzed how it relates to sustainability. A search performed on the Web of Science in January 2020 yielded 1389 documents, and 1289 were selected and underwent bibliometric and topical analyses. The topical ...
Consumers are increasingly concerned about food quality. The “Same line Same standard Same quality” (Santong) program has been implemented to improve food quality in the Chinese domestic market. The Santong program means that exporters are encouraged to produce goods on the same production line, following the same standards and the same quality requirements for both the export target market and the domestic market. Using data collected from an online choice experiment on tomatoes, we examine Chi...
Last. Ori Lahav(Technion – Israel Institute of Technology)H-Index: 28
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An onboard zero-discharge water treatment process, aimed at the well-boat industry, is described and demonstrated as an alternative to current techniques. Two live-fish holding trials were carried ...
An intention-behavior gap often occurs for socially responsible consumption, where despite positive consumer attitudes, sales remain disappointing. This paper aims to test the ability of in-store priming to increase sales of local foods vis-a-vis imported, cheaper equivalents.,Laboratory and field experiments in three countries (Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia), working with an international grocery retailer, assess the ability of textual and pictorial-based point of sale (PoS) materials to increas...
Last. Noshaba Aziz(NAU: Nanjing Agricultural University)H-Index: 4
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Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a dramatic loss of human life worldwide and presented an unprecedented challenge to public health and food systems. It is debated in the literature that SARS-CoV-2 accountable for COVID-19 originated from nature, and wildlife colonized in nature are also likely to cause COVID-19 havoc. In this study, we attempted to explore the effect of COVID-19 on residents' willingness to consume and pay for wild animals. Data were gathered online from 1250 household ...
Aware of the need to take into consideration consumer behavior in order to define adequate offers according to their attitudes and expectations, as well as to promote the image of local products by moderating their specificities according to consumer needs, not only the scientific community, but also the professional community have been working on the analysis and evaluation of consumer perception, as a process capable of identifying and clarifying the factors influencing the consumer's purchase...
#1Yang Yang(Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy)H-Index: 3
#2Jill E. Hobbs(U of S: University of Saskatchewan)H-Index: 32
Last. David C. Natcher(U of S: University of Saskatchewan)H-Index: 19
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The Canadian Arctic is a unique food producing region. Much of the food produced in the Canadian Arctic has a strong tie with Indigenous cultures and communities, is produced or harvested in a pristine environment, and features species not commonly consumed in other parts of Canada. Building upon previous work and using data from a survey of Canadian consumers featuring a discrete choice experiment positioned around a seafood purchasing decision (Arctic Char), we use a latent class model to exam...
#2Jabir Ali(IIMA: Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad)H-Index: 12
Abstract This study aims at analyzing the factors affecting the consumer's willingness to pay for health and wellness food products in India, based on the primary consumer survey of 218 respondents. A structured questionnaire survey was administered using a stratified random sampling technique. The Poisson Count Regression Model (PCRM) has been used to analyse the factors affecting the willingness to pay for health and wellness food products. The analysis reveals that 44 percent of the consumers...
As the COVID-19 pandemic brings about sudden change in societies across the globe and likely heralds the start of a recession, we examine the pandemic’s impact on consumer food safety perceptions. Due to its origin, COVID-19, likely spurring from an animal-to-human transmission in the context of a wet market, may impact consumer food perceptions in similar ways to the avian flu (H5N1) and the swine flu (H1N1). We examine this effect by studying preferences for beef meat in a consumer survey in t...