The role of private companies in improving nutrition of consumer groups in a developing country: a hedonic analysis of tilapia attributes in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT

Consumers in developed countries are often willing to pay for high quality food, while the willingness to pay of poor consumers in developing countries is uncertain. The nutritious value increases the willingness to pay for quality, whereas the lack of affordability reduces it. The purpose of this study is to identify the implicit price of the quality attributes of tilapia among different consumer groups in the domestic market of Bangladesh. A survey on 300 consumers of different areas of Bangladesh was conducted to estimate the hedonic price models. The results show that fish size is a main attribute for the purchase decision of all consumer groups. For all consumer groups, consumers pay 14% more for the bigger size (more than 1 kg) of tilapia. In addition, they pay 7% and 6% more if the fish is tasty and the eyes are transparent while they pay 7% and 3% less for its soft abdomen and presence of bones respectively. The implication of these findings is that private companies in the value chain have an incentive to supply tilapia of improved quality and earn more when the hedonic price of the quality attributes exceeds the costs. Under such circumstances, private companies have an incentive to deliver higher quality tilapia that potentially can also improve the nutritious situation of poor consumers in Bangladesh.

KEYWORDS:

• Tilapia
• nutrition
• quality attributes
• hedonic model
• Bangladesh

Acknowledgments

This work has been financially supported by the research project BANGFISH entitled “Upgrading Pangasius and Tilapia Value Chains in Bangladesh”, No. F38A26778 funded by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), Denmark. We further acknowledge the respondents who actively participated in the survey for providing the accurate data. We also acknowledge the enumerators for their enormous efforts in conducting the survey.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The two zones described in this study are the production zone and the consumption zone. The production zone refers to the districts simultaneously producing and consuming large amounts of tilapia. Also, the surveyed districts which produced more than 5% of the total production in the years 2016–17 and 2017–18 are known as production zone (DoF 2017, 2018). The districts include in this zone are Mymensingh, Chittagong, Comilla, Khulna and Jessore. The consumption zone refers the districts that do not produce much but consumed large amounts of tilapia. Also, the districts which produced less than 5% of the total production in the years 2016–17 and 2017–18 are known as the consumption zone of tilapia (DoF 2018, 2017). The districts in this zone are Dhaka and Gazipur, Bogra, Barishal and Bhola.

2. Search attributes (qualities) denote the attributes of a product which are normally evaluated before its purchase. Experience attributes (qualities) are the attributes of a product which are normally evaluated after its purchase or during consumption of the product. For tilapia, in this study, examples of search attributes are size, form, body color, gill color, eye character and abdomen; examples of experience attributes, in this study, are the taste and the presence of bones.