24pgs, Increasingly, the health claims made by food products focus on the marketing of specific molecular enrichments. Research exploring consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for health claims assumes that individuals hold perfect information on the benefits of the enrichment, and that their valuations depend solely on whether or not they need to improve their health. While health interventions are aimed at individuals at higher health risk, consumers may be unaware of the health risks that they face, limiting the effectiveness of a generic targeting strategy. Using an orthogonal experimental design, we explore the impact of two factors on the WTP for vitamin D enrichment in eggs: whether the information is person-specific or generic; and the presence of a health claim explaining the vitamin D enrichment. Results indicate that it is the provision of information, not the health claim, that influences WTP. Both generic and personalised information lead to similar increases in the WTP for vitamin D enrichment. While we only observe a direct effect of generic information on the WTP for vitamin D enrichment, personal information may also operate by increasing the perceived risk of vitamin D deficiency. Our results support the use of personalised health information during the choice task as a means of increasing the sales of healthy products.
29 pages., Findings of a survey among consumers indicated that consumers recognize different kinds of functional foods, are willing to pay a premium for their purchase, and perceive possible health value. However, they appeared anxious about the health benefits these foods communicate in their labels.
Vaiknoras, Kate (author), Larochelle,Catherine (author), Birol, Ekin (author), Asare-Marfo, Dorene (author), and Herrington, Caitlin (author)
Format:
Paper
Publication Date:
2017-07-30
Published:
Rwanda
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D09237
Notes:
Research paper presented at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association annual meeting, Chicago, Illinois, July 30-August 1, 2017. 38 pages; only the abstract and conclusions section are printed for ACDC archiving.
