Volume 20, Issue 1 - Topics in the Economics of Food Consumption and Policy

In the past decade, the market share of environmentally friendly farming (EFF) produce in Japan has witnessed relatively rapid growth. However, consumer awareness and purchasing experience of this agricultural produce are still lagging. To study how awareness of EFF produce influences consumer psychology and purchase decisions, we use ordered logistic regression and choice experiments to analyze 600 survey responses collected through online questionnaires. The results show that information from friends and family can have a positive influence on Japanese consumers’ trust in EFF produce. Consumers also show a significant preference for EFF produce in the short term after receiving information about it. By setting up a control group for comparison, we find that, in addition to information, consumer education and income also positively and significantly affect the decision to purchase EFF produce. This study presents a unique perspective between information and consumer decision-making and provides targeted solutions for the promotional and marketing strategy problems faced by EFF produce sellers in Japan. We argue that strengthening regional publicity methods such as community events can enhance EFF producers’ marketing strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the effect of experienced quality attributes, credence quality attributes and demographic factors affecting green-skin avocado consumption. Data for the present study came from a consumer online survey to 355 avocado consumers. Consumer preferences were modeled by an ordered logit model. Results indicate that experienced quality attributes are the main drivers for green-skin avocado followed by origin and health credence attributes, respectively. Demographic factors other than ethnicity do not play a significant role for green-skin avocado consumption. Among other things, the findings indicate that consumers place a higher valuation on higher fat content compared to low calorie content, implying that the latter attribute should not be touted at the expense of the former. To the extent possible, the industry should focus on cultivars with higher fat content and develop promotional activities to target non-Hispanic consumers. The present study constitutes an effort to contribute to the existing literature as it explores the role of health credence attributes, a topic that has not received much attention.

This paper assesses the price premiums and discounts for nine sparkling wine types or names commonly employed in Australia. Hedonic wine price functions are estimated for 10 years of wine releases to identify the specific price impact of different sparkling wine types or names, after controlling for other wine price determining factors. Results identify that important price premiums occur with the use of blanc de blancs and other less common sparkling reds. An important price discount is estimated for prosecco wines. Sparkling wine type interactions with climatic regional conditions and cellaring potential also point to some interesting results. The estimates may have potentially important implications for the strategic use of wine types and names by producers and for consumers in identifying good valued sparkling wines.

We use two Almost Ideal Demand Systems models on scanner data to analyze the demand for two food products (milk and coffee). Each demand system is composed of four products varying in the presence of an ecolabel (with or without) and the brand (national brand vs. private label). First, we aim to compare the demand for PL and NB ecolabeled products. While PLs are brands owned and controlled by retailers and specific to each retailer, NBs are owned and controlled by manufacturers and can be offered by several retailers. Second, we aim to assess the impact of information campaigns designed to raise awareness and knowledge of ecolabels. We find that demand is more elastic for ecolabeled goods as in the literature but we find this result only for NB goods (milk and coffee) and not for PL goods. We also find substitutability between ecolabeled and conventional goods as in the literature but only within the NB goods (milk only) and within the PL goods (milk and coffee). We also find complementarity between NB conventional and PL ecolabeled goods (milk and coffee). Finally, we find that information campaigns increase the predicted expenditure shares of PL organic milk by 33% and of NB fair trade coffee by 50%. But these effects are non-lasting.

This article develops a theoretical model to analyze how policies such as regional labeling, geographic indications, and quality standards affect welfare when firms have a collective reputation corresponding to a region. The tradeoff is between consumer information and protection of the regional names against the effect of supply restriction, which is often considered to be collusive behavior. Regional labeling is found to increase quality for all firms and increases profits for firms in the high-quality producing region, although the effect on profits for firms in the low-quality producing region is ambiguous. Quality standards may also increase quality and profits in all regions, but can also be used as a way to restrict imports if standards are too high. Quotas can also alleviate the collective information problem and increase profits, but does so at the expense of consumers. We argue that clear labeling and achievable standards are preferable to import quotas due to consumer surplus.

We pair IRI household purchase records with Nielsen TDLinx data on the retail food environment to investigate the associations between retail market structure and Americans’ adherence to the Dietary Guidelines. We focus specifically on fruit and vegetable consumption, as proxied by purchases. Controlling for various household characteristics, we find that increased market concentration is associated with lower produce consumption and weaker adherence to recommendations. We also find a number of small but significant associations with respect to the presence of nontraditional retail formats.