Canadian Consumer Willingness to Pay for Omega-3 Meat

Abstract

This study analyzes Canadian consumer willingness to pay for omega-3 enhanced beef, pork, and chicken. Using a nationwide survey conducted by ACNielsen in 2006 and choice modeling framework, results indicate that smaller household, households with high incomes, and households that have previously purchased an omega-3 product are willing to pay a premium for omega-3 beef, pork and chicken. The results also suggest that consumers that have previously purchased an omega-3 product are willing to pay a higher premium for the respective omega-3 meats compared to households that have never purchased an omega-3 product. Also, premiums are highest for omega-3 beef, followed by omega-3 pork, and last, omega-3 chicken.

Keywords:

• consumers
• meat
• omega-3
• willingness to pay

Notes

1 It is worth noting that health claims in Canada are currently going through a revision thus the above status quo might or might not be affected.

2 In 2006, the CLA Network conducted research on Canadian consumers' interest in CLA beef. CLA is a type of healthy fatty acid found naturally in dairy and beef products. The results of this research suggest that consumers are willing to pay a premium for products with a label denoting high CLA content. A summary of research results can be found at http://www.meristem.com/clanetwork/f-07_03.html.

3 The focus of this report or study is not to discuss the strengths or weakness of the respective methods but rather to elicit Canadian consumers' willingness to pay for the respective omega-3 meats. Thus, we will just concentrate on discussing the method we used in our study and the results obtained.

4 Let for simplicity represent the demographic and behavioral variables

5 Researchers at Alberta Agriculture and Food designed the survey.

6 The benefit of such a survey is that it is completely self-administered and the respondents have time to reflect on their answers.

7 Respondents are assumed to be the head of the household.

8 It is worth noting that the sample across the different meat products does not add up to 100%. This is because in the survey question, each omega-3 product was treated as independent from each other and not as a close substitute. Thus, the choice to choose omega-3 beef, pork, or chicken should be looked at as a dichotomous choice. Hence, for each product the sample should add up to 7947.