Examining Organic Food Purchases and Preferences Within Jordan

Continuing economic development in Jordan provides potential food marketing opportunities as a new group of prospective value-added food product consumers emerges. The growing demand for high-value foods such as organically produced items also provides a new potential value-added market for Jordanian farmers. No studies to our knowledge have examined consumer preferences toward organic food items within Jordan. This study provides an initial attempt to fill this knowledge gap by examining the market for organic food items from a demand perspective in order to increase the knowledge available to Jordanian farmers, food processors, and retailers.     

Nutrition Transition and Changing Food Preferences in India

We present empirical evidence on how changes in food preferences have contributed to nutrition transition, where the dietary pattern of households shifts away from traditional staples. Using household-level time series cross-section survey data for India, we estimate time varying demand elasticities, revealing evidence of the declining importance of cereals in Indian household diets. The estimates show that Indian demand for cereals has become more income inelastic and price elastic. We also find that cereals are a substitute rather than a complement to animal products in household diets. Since changes in elasticities can only be attributed to variation in utility parameters, this indicates that cereals are losing favour with Indian households. These findings have implications for Indian food policy design and implementation.     

Evaluating Consumer Preferences for Organic Food Production Standards

In 21st century agriculture, standards are increasingly used to define new food products, such as organic food and fair trade. In some cases these standards are privately determined but in other cases they have been established by governments. Indeed, the Government of Canada recently announced its organic food regulations. A key dimension of the policy process involves choosing which standards are to be used to govern the production of organic food. Unfortunately, decision makers faced with these choices know very little about how the public values the various standards that could be used to define organic. This study evaluates Canadian consumers' preferences for different organic standards. Standards pertaining to pesticide‐residue testing, product origin specifications, the standard setting agency, and standard monitoring agency are evaluated using a conjoint method. Key results suggest that consumers place a high value on a pesticide standard that involves regular testing of the end product and that they prefer an organic food standard to include a rule that limits where the good is produced. En agriculture en ce 21^e siècle, des normes sont de plus en plus utilisées pour définir de nouveaux produits alimentaires tels que les aliments biologiques et les aliments issus du commerce équitable. Dans certains cas, ces normes sont établies par des organismes privés, et dans d'autres cas, elles sont établies par les gouvernements. Dernièrement, le gouvernement du Canada a annoncé son Règlement sur les produits biologiques. Un élément clé du processus d'élaboration des politiques consiste à choisir les normes qui s'appliqueront à la production d'aliments biologiques. Malheureusement, les décideurs à qui reviennent ces choix en savent très peu sur les valeurs que le public accorde aux diverses normes qui pourraient être utilisées pour définir le terme «biologique». La présente étude évalue les préférences des consommateurs canadiens concernant les diverses normes sur les produits biologiques. Les normes sur l'analyse des résidus de pesticides, les spécifications sur l'origine du produit, les organismes de normalisation et les organismes de surveillance sont évaluées à l'aide d'une méthode conjointe. Les résultats fondamentaux montrent que les consommateurs accordent une grande importance à une norme sur les pesticides qui exige des analyses régulières du produit final et qu'ils préfèrent une norme sur les aliments biologiques qui inclut un règlement sur l'origine du produit.     

The Changing Landscape of the Canadian Food Market: Ethnicity and the Market for Ethnic Food

This paper explores the interplay between immigration, ethnic diversity, and food demand in Canada. Attention focuses on the consequences of an increasingly diverse population on demand for food. The notion of dietary acculturation is discussed in the context of a fragmenting market for foods in Canada. A research agenda is presented with the intent to stimulate research that addresses the role of ethnicity in shaping demand for food in Canada. As Canada becomes more ethnically diverse, the landscape of the Canadian food environment will evolve. Understanding the impact of such change on demand for foods in Canada will become increasingly important. Such understanding can help inform the supply side of the market in terms of retail and food service location decisions, as well as decisions related to the marketing mix. Dans le présent article nous analysons l’interaction entre l’immigration, la diversité ethnique et la demande alimentaire au Canada et examinons tout particulièrement les répercussions de l’accroissement de la diversité ethnique sur la demande alimentaire. Nous abordons la notion d’acculturation alimentaire dans un contexte de segmentation du marché alimentaire au Canada. Nous présentons un programme de recherche qui vise à stimuler la recherche sur le rôle de l’ethnicité dans la détermination de la demande alimentaire au Canada. Plus la population canadienne se diversifiera sur le plan ethnique, plus l’environnement alimentaire évoluera, d’où l’importance de bien déterminer les répercussions de cette diversification sur la demande alimentaire au Canada. La détermination de ces répercussions aidera les acteurs du côté de l’offre à prendre des décisions quant à l’emplacement des magasins d’alimentation et des établissements de restauration et à la logistique commerciale (marketing mix).     

Consumers' Preferences Toward Attributes of Manufactured Halal Food Products

Consumers' buying decisions are invariably influenced by their religion and culture. In Islam, the foods they consume must be halal or permissible according to the Islamic principles. However, there are other food attributes such as brand, price, promotion, and safety assurance that may also influence consumers' decisions. This article aims to evaluate consumers' preferences toward various attributes of the manufactured halal food sold in supermarkets. The focus is on halal certification because consumers, especially Muslims, need the assurance that the food they purchased is really halal. Two hundred eighty-eight people agreed to participate by providing their perceptions and preferences toward food product attributes. Certified halal food product gained the highest utility score and was the most important attribute.     

Estimating the Effect of Ethnicity on the Demand for Food

A straightforward regression equation approach is used to investigate why different consumers buy varying quantities of the same item in outlets of the same retail food chain. Eighteen items were studied. Demand for thirteen seems to be significantly related to ethnicity, demand for five is positively related to income. As the study employs census data, the technique can easily be used by marketing managers to obtain useful market information.     

Labelling Genetically Modified Food: Heterogeneous Consumer Preferences and the Value of Information

One facet of public debate associated with genetically modified (GM) food focuses on labelling policy for products derived from GM processes. This paper reports on the analysis of effects on consumers' choices of pre-packaged sliced bread under different GM food labelling policies. Substantial heterogeneity is found to exist among consumers' tastes for various bread attributes, including the presence/absence of GM ingredients in bread products. A simulation-based bias-adjusted measure is applied to estimate the value of information, as opposed to the value of the presence or absence of GM ingredients, revealed to consumers by different labelling procedures for the GM attribute. The information that is provided in a mandatory labelling context is considerably more valued by consumers than the information provided in a voluntary labelling context. In a final section, estimated consumer benefits from labelling policies are expressed in terms of average market prices for bread products, providing a measure of benefits against which potential cost increases that may be associated with labelling policies may be compared in the context of any future benefit–cost analysis of GM labelling.     

Heterogeneous Consumer Preferences for Nanotechnology and Genetic‐modification Technology in Food Products

This study investigates heterogeneous consumer preferences for nanofood and genetically‐modified (GM) food and the associated benefits using the results of choice experiments with 1,117 US consumers. We employ a latent class logit model to capture the heterogeneity in consumer preferences by identifying consumer segments. Our results show that nano‐food evokes fewer negative reactions compared with GM food. We identify four consumer groups: ‘Price Oriented/Technology Adopters’, ‘Technology Averse’, ‘Benefit Oriented’, and ‘New Technology Rejecters’. Each consumer group has a distinctive demographic background, which generates deeper insights into the diversified public acceptance of nano‐food and GM food. Our results have policy implications for the adoption of new food technologies.     

Consumers' Preferences for Nanotechnology in Food Packaging: A Discrete Choice Experiment

We examine consumers' preferences for chickens under different levels of foodborne health risk, animal welfare and pric attributes. We analyse how their preferences vary according to the risk reduction method. Our comparison is between risk reductions achieved by conventional improvements in the meat supply chain system (e.g. more stringent regulations and inspection regimes), and risk reductions achieved by food packaging nanosensors. Our comparison uses a two‐treatment discrete choice experiment in which each treatment sample is only presented with one of the risk reductions: either nanotechnology or conventional methods. We also investigate heterogeneity in preferences for two consumer groups: (i) consumers who usually buy conventional raw, whole chickens, and (ii) consumers who usually buy niche, welfare‐improved chickens, such as free‐range and organic. Our results show evidence of heterogeneity in preferences and willingness‐ to‐pay values of the both consumer groups. We find that consumers, on average, prefer raw, whole chicken with a lower risk of food poisoning, better animal welfare, and lower costs, regardless of the presence of nanosensors. Although consumers in general showed no strong preferences towards or resistance to nanotechnology, those who buy chickens with better animal welfare, on average, showed higher WTP for food risk reduction and animal welfare relative to conventional chicken consumers.     

Consumers' Preferences for GM Food and Voluntary Information Access: A Simultaneous Choice Analysis

Previous studies on information and consumer choices have typically assumed that information is exogenous in that information made available to consumers is generally treated as being both received and processed. Based on a choice experiment on consumers' stated preferences for genetically modified food that provides for voluntary information access, this study allows information access decisions to be endogenous to the product choice decision‐making process. Instead of assuming correlated error terms between these decisions, the approach used in this analysis builds upon structural correlations between two models that individually consider each of these two decisions. We find that the two types of decisions are related and that there is heterogeneity across individuals in the nature of this relationship. Des études antérieures sur l'information et les choix des consommateurs ont typiquement supposé que l'information est exogène, en ce sens que l'information mise à la disposition des consommateurs est généralement considérée comme étant à la fois reçue et traitée. Selon une méthode de choix expérimentaux sur les préférences déclarées des consommateurs quant aux aliments génétiquement modifiés offrant l'accès volontaire à l'information, la présente étude permet aux décisions d'accès à l'information d'être endogènes au processus de décision lié au choix du produit. Au lieu de supposer des termes d'erreur corrélés entre ces décisions, la méthode utilisée dans la présente analyse mise sur la corrélation structurale entre les deux modèles qui examinent individuellement ces deux décisions. Nous trouvons que les deux types de décisions sont liés et qu'il existe une hétérogénéité entre les individus quant à la nature de ce lien.     

Consumer Preferences for Organic Food and for the Shares of Meat and Vegetables in an Everyday Meal

Abstract

It is well established that consumers with positive preferences for organic products generally also tend to have healthy eating habits involving many fruits and vegetables but less meat. While most studies are based on single product comparisons, this study investigates consumer preferences for organic ingredients and content of meat and vegetables in the context of an everyday evening meal. Moreover, we address heterogeneity in preferences. The study is based on an online survey including a choice experiment with 506 consumers. Using principal component and latent class analyses, we identify three segments of consumers that differ with respect to preferences for organic production and content of meat and vegetables in their meals. Our findings may be valuable for authorities promoting healthy food consumption just as they provide valuable input to the catering industry and other suppliers of dinner dishes in the development and marketing of both organic and non-organic ready meals.     

Conceptualizing and Measuring Ethnicity

This paper critically reviews the ontological debates over the nature of ethnicity and the different ways in which it is operationalized and “measured” for quantitative research. It is argued that while moving away from a “primordealist” position on ethnicity renders measurement of the social diversity more difficult, conceptually and practically it does not invalidate this exercise. A second problem, however, is also identified with the measurement of ethnicity: when information on ethnic diversity is incorporated with other socio-economic information, a range of measures can be derived that purport to pick up very different distributions, but that are in reality often very highly correlated. These two problems combined present a significant challenge for the quantitative study of the relationship between ethnic diversity and political and economic outcomes such as conflict and growth patterns. The authors do not assert that these problems invalidate the exercise of investigating these relationships econometrically entirely, but they suggest the problems do warn us to be more guarded and modest in the claims made on the basis of such analyses.     

Combining Stated and Revealed Preferences on Typical Food Products: The Case of Dry‐Cured Ham in Spain

An extensive body of research concerns the valuation of EU certification schemes of quality based on the origin of food products. This literature focuses mainly on stated preferences (SPs) and reported behaviours by the consumers. We combine consumers’ SPs, obtained through a conjoint ranking experiment, with revealed preferences (RP), obtained through a retail scanner database. We evaluate SPs as predictors of RP, and investigate whether SPs and RPs are consistent. Dry‐cured ham in Spain is chosen as the anchor product, mainly because of its broad customer base and long history of origin certification. A ‘trick’ nested logit model with non‐identical and identical samples of consumers is estimated to answer each of the objectives. Results show that, irrespective of the analysed samples, SP can predict general market trends and choices but not accurately predict market shares, and that consumers’ actual behaviour is partly consistent with their SPs. We find that consumers prefer ham produced in Teruel, compared with unspecified Spanish origin. Quality Certification and a Distributor’s Brand are preferred over the alternatives of no quality label or identified with a brand owned by the producer. Interestingly, SPs for the Quality Certification and the distributor’s brand lead to an over‐ and under‐estimation, respectively, of the market share.     

Comparative Advantage in Demand: Experimental Evidence of Preferences for Genetically Modified Food in the United States and European Union

The United States (US) exports more than US$6 billion in agricultural commodities to the European Union(EU) each year, but one issue carries the potential to diminish this trade: use of biotechnology in food production. The EU has adopted more stringent policies towards biotechnology than the US. Understanding differences in European and American policies towards genetically modified (GM) foods requires a greater understanding of consumers’ attitudes and preferences. This paper reports results from the first large‐scale, cross‐Atlantic study to analyse consumer demand for genetically modified food in a non‐hypothetical market environment. We strongly reject the frequent if convenient assumption in trade theory that consumer preferences are identical across countries: the median level of compensation demanded by English and French consumers to consume a GM food is found to be more than twice that in any of the US locations. Results have important implications for trade theory, which typically focuses on differences in specialization, comparative advantage and factor endowments across countries, and for on‐going trade disputes at the World Trade Organization.     

Consumer Motives and Purchase Preferences for Organic Food Products: Empirical Evidence From a Consumer Survey in Bangalore,South India

ABSTRACT

Consumer organic food choice motives and purchase preferences were studied in a structured quantitative survey (N = 201) in Bangalore, with the aim of identifying consumer segments based on these motives and preferences. Further, sociodemographic differences between the clusters were studied. Face-to-face interviews were used to sample the data, which were analyzed with factor and k-means cluster analysis (SPSS 16.0). Five latent factors were identified based on the motives, representing a set of consumer concerns labeled here as “food phobia” (health),” “environment,” “humanity,” “healthy eaters,” and “control.” Further, three clusters emerged from these motives representing 38%, 37%, and 25% of the sample size. The factors differ in terms of variance. Here, the records of perceived healthiness (food phobia) were the most important element, explaining 18.37% of the total variance. These clusters were differing in terms of the level and order of motivations. The health factor was a most important motive in two clusters, followed by environment. Further, humanity was the most important motive for the third cluster. This may reflect a heterogeneous nature of consumers in study area. Additionally, five clusters were identified based on the preferences, and profiles of these clusters differed in terms of sociodemographic factors and consumption pattern. Segments were identified based on motivating factors and preferences, and linking them with food choice motives and products preference provides the input needed by marketing professionals and policy makers to calibrate more efficient marketing strategies to better focus and position their products and design their communication strategies for target segments.     

Linking Consumers’ Food Choice Motives to their Preferences for Insect‐based Food Products: An Application of Integrated Choice and Latent Variable Model in an African Context

Consumers’ attitudes, perceptions, personalities and motives play important roles in shaping their food choices. These factors are not fully observed by analysts, so they should be treated as latent variables. A number of economic studies treat such variables as direct measures of consumers’ food choice behaviour, even though this might introduce measurement error and endogeneity bias. We investigate the latent link between consumers’ preferences and food choice motives (FCMs) in an African context. We use an integrated choice and latent variable (ICLV) model specification for data analysis to recognise the latent nature of the FCMs and address the measurement and bias problems. The data originate from an incentivised discrete choice experiment conducted in Kenya to elicit consumers’ preferences for insect‐based foods. Our findings show that consumers’ preferences and choices are influenced by their latent motivational orientation. The results illustrate the benefit of the ICLV approach in accounting for consumers’ latent preference constructs in food choice and valuation research.     

食品质量信息标签如何影响消费者偏好——基于山东省843个样本的选择实验

本文基于山东省843个消费者样本,以番茄为例,设置食品安全认证标签、可追溯标签、品牌与价格属性进行了选择实验,并借助随机参数Logit模型研究了消费者偏好。结果显示,消费者对食品安全认证标签、可追溯标签和品牌属性均具有显著支付意愿,对可追溯标签的支付意愿远高于其他属性,且不同信息标签的组合给消费者偏好带来不同影响,食品安全认证标签与可追溯标签间以及可追溯标签与品牌间皆存在互补关系,而食品安全认证标签与品牌间存在替代关系。研究同时表明,消费者食品安全认证知识与可追溯知识层次提高,对消费者支付意愿的影响并不相同。在此基础上,提出了建立食品安全认证制度和食品可追溯系统等建议以减小食品市场信息不对称、提高消费者信心与支付意愿。     

食品添加剂与食品安全概述

合理使用食品添加剂有助于食品行业的商品化,但是随着食品安全事故的逐渐增多,必须要对食品添加剂的使用有正确的认识.本文对食品添加剂的主要问题进行阐述,分析食品添加剂的作用、重要性、发展现状以及可能存在的问题,并最终提出正确使用食品添加剂的建议.     

Transatlantic Differences in Consumer Preferences

Transatlantic Differences in Consumer Preferences The EU prohibits imports of hormone-treated beef and is about to impose labelling and traceability requirements on GMOs. Both policies have created growing unease on the part of exporting countries. The EU claims that public health concerns and consumers' preferences justify the trade restrictions, while exporters maintain that the rules serve primarily to protect domestic agriculture by limiting international competition. In a consumer study in France, Germany, the UK, and the US, we determine if consumers' preferences, as reflected in willingness-to-pay estimates, are different across the Atlantic. Our study covered two products: beef from cattle treated by hormones and from cattle fed genetically modified corn. Our results suggest that French consumers are willing to pay more than US consumers for beef from cattle not administered hormones. There are, however, no significant differences among German, UK and US consumers. In contrast, consumers in France, Germany and the UK are willing to pay more for beef from animals not fed GM corn than are US consumers. Given these results and current policy developments, it seems unlikely that the EU will retract its labelling requirements on GM food and feed, and future trade disputes are likely to emerge. Des consommateurs différents d'une rive de l'Atlantique à l'autre l'Union Européenne interdit l'importation de viande aux hormones, et s'apprête à imposer des normes d'étiquetage et de traçabilité pour les OGM. Dans chaque cas, les pays exportateurs ont été choqués par ces politiques. l'UE soutient que la santé publique et les préférences des consommateurs justifient de telles entorses au libéralisme, cependant que les pays exportateurs restent dans l' idée qu'il ne s'agit là que de moyens de protéger ragriculture rationale de la concurrence internationale. Nous avons essayé de vérifier si les préférences rationales, telles qu'elles sont définies par le consentement à payer, sont réellement différentes d'une rive à l'autre de l'Atlantique, à partir de l'étude d'un échantillon de consommateurs recrutés en France, Grande Bretagne, Allemagne et Etats Unis. Notre étude concerne deux produits:le bœuf traité aux hormones, et le bœuf nourri au maïs génétiquement modifyé. Les résultats montrent que les Français sont mieux disposés que les Américains à payer plus cher du bceuf non traité aux hormones. En dehors de cela, il n'y a pas de grosses différences entre les consommateurs anglais, allemands, et américains pour ce produit. Par contre, pour ce qui concerne le bœuf nourri au maïs OGM, il apparaît que les Britanniques, les Français et les Allemands sont bien plus disposés que les Américains à payer un surprixpour l'éviter. Dans ces conditions, et au vu des derniers développements politiques, on ne voit pas comment éviter que l'UE ne maintienne ses exigences en matière d'OGM pour l'alimentation humaine ou celledu bétail, ce qui entraînera sans doute une nouvelle guerre commerciale. Transatlantische Unterschiede bei verbraucherpräferenzen Die EU verbietet den Import von ormonbehandeltem Rindfleisch und wird in Kürze Rückverfolgbarkeit und Kennzeichnungspflicht bei GVOs verlangen. Diese beiden Maßnahmen werden von den Exportländem mißbiliigt. Die EU beruft sich darauf, dass diese Handelsrestriktionen durch die Sorge um die öffentliche Gesundheit und durch die Verbraucherpräferenzen gerechtfertigt seien. Die Exporteure führen an, dass diese Verordnungen primär dem Schutze der einheimischen Landwirtschaft dienten, da sie den internationalen Wettbewerb einschränken. In einer Verbraucherstudie in Frankreich, Deutschland, Großbritannien und den USA wird anhand von Schätzungen der Zahiungsbereitschaft ermittelt, ob es bei den Verbraucherpräferenzen tatsächlich transatlantische Unterschiede gibt. Die Studie umfasste zwei Erzeugnisse: Rindfleisch von hormonbehandelten Tieren und von Tieren, die mit genetisch verändertem Mais gefüttert worden waren. Die Resultate legen es nahe, dass französische Verbraucher mehr als US amerikanische Verbraucher bereit sind, einen höheren Preis für Rindfleisch von Tieren zu zahlen, welchen keine Hormone verabreicht wurden. Es sind jedoch keine signiflkanten Unterschiede zwischen deutschen, britischen und US-amerikanischen Verbrauchern vorhanden. Andererseits sind Franzosen, Deutsche und Briten mehr als US-amerikanische Verbraucher bereit, einen höheren Preis für Rindfleisch von Tieren zu zahlen, welche nicht mit genetisch verändertem Mais gefüttert wurden. In Anbetracht dieser Ergebnisse und der aktuellen politischen Entwicklungen erscheint es unwahrscheinlich, dass die EU die Verordnung zur Kennzeichnung von genetisch veränderten Lebensmitteln und Futtermitteln zurücknehmen wird. Zukünftige Handelskontroversen sind zu erwarten.