Eliciting consumer willingness to pay for food quality attributes : experiments conducted in Tanzania, Norway and the US

Abstract

In assessing and measuring consumer preference and willingness to pay for quality attributes, many things matter including context and choice of methods. This thesis focuses on two themes; (1) assessing consumer preference for food quality in different context and (2) testing for difference between WTP elicitation methods. The thesis contains four independent papers based on data from experiments conducted in Tanzania, Norway and the US. Paper 1 and 2 assess consumer WTP for attributes related to food safety in Tanzania. On top of assessing consumer preference, Paper 2 also compares consumer WTP in four different elicitation techniques. Both paper 1&2 find that consumers in Tanzania are concerned with food safety, and the results are consistent across all the four methods, across gender and consumers income level (low or high).. Paper 2 finds that the size of the premium between the valuation methods differ when consumers choose between alternatives than when consumers indicate their willingness to pay. This underscores the importance of choice of the elicitation method in valuation of goods. Paper 3 investigates whether there exist a consumer-citizen duality in WTP for food safety standards in restaurants. The paper finds that both consumers and citizens are willing to pay for improved food safety standards, however voting citizens exhibit higher willingness to pay than buying consumers. The study suggests that relying on consumer studies focusing on the buying context to advice on public issues may underestimate the actual support for public regulations. Paper 4 assess Norwegian consumer preferences for sensory and other attributes of dried fruits from Africa. The paper mainly aimed at making recommendations to producers in Africa trying to position value-added products for maximum revenue from Europe. The results suggest that consumers have strong preference for naturalness over uniform taste. However sensory characteristics are still important. The study identifies three consumer segments, two with distinct reasons for preferring a country-of-origin and the third is indifferent to the country of origin of the dried fruits. The study suggests the use of naturalness and fair-trade as a marketing strategy for selling such products in Europe.