Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Foods with Traceability Information: Ex-Ante Quality Assurance or Ex-Post Traceability?

Abstract

In this study, traceability in pork profile information with ex-ante quality assurance and ex-post traceability are constructed. Consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for traceability information is investigated in Wuxi, China, by combining the Multiple Price Lists method and the Becker–DeGroot–Marschak (BDM) experimental auction. The main factors affecting consumers’ WTP are also analyzed using a Tobit model. The results demonstrate that consumers have higher WTP for ex-ante quality assurance than for ex-post traceability. The highest WTP is for the ex-ante quality assurance attribute of pork quality inspection. Consumers’ WTP for traceability information is influenced by their individual characteristics, including age, education and income, as well as their concern and satisfaction about food safety and confidence in food safety labeling. The contribution of this paper is that it improves the meaning of traceable food information attributes and measures the significance of attributes to consumers. Furthermore, this paper introduces a Becker–DeGroot–Marschak experimental auction method which amends the measurement deviation of hypothetical experiments.

Compromise Effect in Food Consumer Choices in China: An Analysis on Pork Products

“…To enhance consumer knowledge and facilitate strengthened food safety, traceability measures of pork have received considerable attention in academia and industry ( Heath and Chatterjee, 1995 ; Chuang and Yen, 2007 ; Chamorro et al, 2015 ). Although a complete food traceability system has not yet been established in China, many existing studies show that traceability plays one of the most important roles in improving consumer confidence in and consumption of pork products ( Hobbs, 2004 ; Alfnes et al, 2018 ; Hou et al, 2019 ). As the increased costs of establishing a traceability system will also lead to higher sales prices of traceable pork, understanding consumer acceptance of traceable pork is crucial but is under-investigated in China.…”

Quick and easy? Respondent evaluations of the Becker–DeGroot–Marschak and multiple price list valuation mechanisms

“…Hou et al (2019) point to several important benefits of using the BDM and MPL methods, including that they can be used on one respondent at a time, can start when the respondents arrive, and make it easy to randomize between groups. They also argue that methods that are easy to understand and quick to conduct can increase respondents' willingness to participate in the experiment, and thereby reduce selection bias.…”

“…However, in many situations, such as small scale market testing of new products in‐store or field‐market, there is a need for valuation methods that respondents understand easily and that can be conducted quickly with minimal explanation and training by less experienced moderators (Alphonce & Alfnes, 2017). Long and complicated experiments will also likely reduce willingness to participate and create validity problems related to sample selection bias (Hou et al, 2019). Inside stores or in field markets, typically food researchers and analysts can only engage with one respondent at a time and individual valuations must be completed within minutes.…”

Consumer Preferences for Traceable Food with Different Functions of Safety Information Attributes: Evidence from a Menu-Based Choice Experiment in China

“…However, the types of traceable pork with different functional attributes discussed in this study do not yet exist in the Chinese market. Therefore, in order to set reasonable price levels for traceable pork with different functional attributes, according to Wu [28], a preliminary willingness to pay experimental auction was conducted for different information attributes using the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) mechanism [29] in Wuxi. As such, the consumer-induced value (average price information) in simulated real-world market trading scenarios was obtained.…”