Survey data collected from randomly selected participants within the four geographical regions of the U.S. were used to evaluate consumer attitudes towards functional foods and determine their willingness to pay for these foods. Contingent valuation using the payment card method was used to elicit premiums that consumers are willing to pay for a spread that maintains a healthy heart (spread A), a spread that is proven to significantly reduce cholesterol (spread B) and a loaf of bread that may reduce the risk of heart disease and certain cancers (bread A). Ordered probit regression analysis was used to evaluate the effect of different explanatory variables on the willingness to pay a premium for the three different functional food products.
Overall, the following four factors significantly affected the respondents willingness to pay a premium for all the three products evaluated: beliefs about the link between nutrition and health, concern about different chronic diseases, current purchasing and consumption patterns, and attitude towards functional foods. These factors also seem to affect the decision of whether to pay a premium for functional foods more than the decision of how much to pay. The significance of demographic variables depended on the product being valued.
Regarding the premiums, on average respondents are willing to pay the current grocery store premium for spread A. On average, respondents are not willing to pay even half of the current grocery store 500% premium for spread B, although the stated WTP results indicated that 9%, are willing to pay at least 400% premium. For bread A, respondents are on average willing to pay a 33% premium instead of the current grocery store 40% premium. Stated WTP indicated that about 42% of the respondents are willing to pay at least a 50% premium for the functional bread.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-01052006-121418 |
| Date | 10 January 2006 |
| Creators | Munene, Cate Nakaweesa |
| Contributors | Wes Harrison, Roger A Hinson, P Lynn Kennedy |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-01052006-121418/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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