Consumer preferences and willingness to pay for quality attributes of farmed fish in Bangladesh: A logit regression and a hedonic price analysis

Abstract

Fish consumption in developing countries like Bangladesh is increasing with increasing aquaculture production; however, consumers are becoming more aware and concerned about food quality issues. This study investigates consumer preferences and willingness to pay for farmed fish quality attributes in Bangladesh using logit and hedonic price models, respectively. A total of 800 consumers were interviewed about four farmed fish species: pangasius, tilapia, rui and catla using a semi-structured questionnaire. The results showed that catla belongs to the higher price segment, whereas pangasius and tilapia belong to the lower price segment. The results also indicate that price, availability, affordability, safety, nutritional characteristics and socioeconomic characteristics like consumer age, years of schooling, number of kids and household members are significant determinants of consumer preferences. The results furthermore confirmed that consumers pay a price premium for larger fish, its firm and elastic texture, transparent eyes and taste, whereas purchasing a higher quantity, whole fish, fish with odor or swollen abdomen and comparatively more bones reduce the price of farmed fish.

Keywords:

• Intrinsic attributes
• extrinsic attributes
• willingness to pay
• cultured species
• Bangladesh

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 There are of course also other factors that are important including income (Mahmud et al., 2022) and supply chain issues (Deb et al., 2022; Prodhan et al., 2022).

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to thank the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), Denmark for the financial support of the BANGFISH project, especially on pangasius and tilapia in Bangladesh [No. F38A26778]. The Research and Training Centre of Patuakhali Science and Technology University, which provided funds for Professor Dr. Afjal Hossain, the corresponding author of this publication, to conduct research on consumer preferences on rui and catla buying decisions, is also acknowledged by the authors.