Consumers' Willingness to Pay for Organic Fresh Milk in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Purpose: Consumption of organic food among consumers in Saudi Arabia has increased in recent times due to increased awareness of health benefits of organic food. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the average amount a consumer is willing to pay in Saudi Arabia for fresh organic milk.Research Method: This paper used the Double Bounded Dichotomous Choice (DBDC) model to identify key determinants of consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for fresh organic milk. Findings:The results showed that organic product label, consumers' awareness about nutritional benefits of organic milk, agility, and income were key determinants of consumers' WTP for fresh organic milk. The paper estimated average consumers' willingness to pay for one litre of fresh organic milk to be SAR 14 while the nonparametric estimates of WTP ranged in values from as low as SAR 10 to as high as 12 SAR.Originality/value: The results are important to the domestic dairy companies and existing European organic long-life milk exporters to Saudi Arabia to initiate business ventures on organic fresh milk business.

Turkish Consumers’ Perceptions of Organic Milk and the Factors Affecting Consumption: The Case of Kocaeli, Türkiye

“…According to Dimitri and Dettmann's [51] research, consumers with lower incomes are less likely to purchase organic milk. In another study, Almarri and Al-Mahishi [44] observed that consumers' willingness to pay for organic milk increased as their incomes did in Arabia. Bahsi et al [52] also state that income has a significant impact on consumers' willingness to pay more for organic milk, which indicates similar results.…”

“…However, the number of consumer studies conducted specifically on organic milk and dairy products is quite limited in Türkiye. Studies show that factors such as price and habit information [34][35][36], health [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44], taste and income [45][46][47][48], environmental concern [49], knowledge of organic products [25], income [29,33,[50][51][52], content [53,54], food safety [33,55], production technique and regional origin [56], and high animal welfare [47] have the highest impact on organic milk consumption.…”