Free Range, Organic? Polish Consumers Preferences Regarding Information on Farming System and Nutritional Enhancement of Eggs: A Discrete Choice Based Experiment

Abstract

Abstract:The main purpose of this study was to determine the structure of consumer preferences regarding information on farming system and nutritional enhancement of eggs to verify if consumers are willing to accept products combing sustainability and nutrition related claims. The data was collected within a CAPI (Computer Assisted Personal Interviews) survey on a representative sample of 935 consumers responsible for food shopping. A discrete choice-based conjoint method was selected in eliciting consumer preferences among different product profiles with varying levels of attributes. A hierarchical cluster analysis was used to identify four distinct clusters that differed significantly in terms of importance attached to production system attributes and socio-demographic profiles. The results of the experiment showed that price and farming system had the most significant mean relative importance in shaping consumers' preferences, while other attributes such as nutrition and health claims, egg size, package size and hen breed were far less important. Free range eggs had the highest relative importance for consumers despite the fact that organic egg production systems are governed by much stricter animal welfare standards. Our segmentation revealed that two of our four clusters may be more easily reached by information on animal welfare related attributes in egg production than the others. The results of our study provide the policy makers and marketing practitioners with insights applicable for communication and pricing strategies for eggs with sustainability claims.

Sustainable Diet Dimensions. Comparing Consumer Preference for Nutrition, Environmental and Social Responsibility Food Labelling: A Systematic Review

“…Three studies found a mix of both health and environmental and/or social responsibility attributes were most popular [47,49,50]. In those studies where environmental and social responsibility attributes were preferred, organic was the preferred choice in eight studies [28,43,46,[51][52][53][54], with animal welfare claims coming a close second (five studies) [44,[55][56][57][58]. Two studies found environmental impact labels were valued most highly [42,59], one Fairtrade [40] and one carbon footprint [60].…”

“…A distinction in consumer label information preference can be seen in those studies where two types of nutrition information (health claims and nutrient content information) are tested side-by-side. In the four studies permitting a comparison of health claims and nutrition content information [45,51,57,63], just one found that the nutrient content information was preferred to information emphasising longer-term health benefits [45]. This preference for health claims over nutrition content information was particularly strong in Zakowska-Biemans et al [57], where the utility of nutrient claims simply stating the omega-3 and vitamin content of eggs was rated negatively compared to health claims expanding on the functional properties of these nutrients.…”

“…In the four studies permitting a comparison of health claims and nutrition content information [45,51,57,63], just one found that the nutrient content information was preferred to information emphasising longer-term health benefits [45]. This preference for health claims over nutrition content information was particularly strong in Zakowska-Biemans et al [57], where the utility of nutrient claims simply stating the omega-3 and vitamin content of eggs was rated negatively compared to health claims expanding on the functional properties of these nutrients. So "vitamins A and E have a positive effect on the cardiovascular system" was more positively received (utility; 0.282) than the more basic "vitamins A and E" claim (utility; 0.055) [57].…”

“…Gender was an important driver of preference, with women more likely to be concerned with animal welfare issues and nutrition, specifically food fat content [28,44,50,62]. Lifestyle values consistently aligned with attribute preference; nine studies found a relationship between self-reported levels of health or environmental consciousness or knowledge and subsequent attribute preference [45,47,49,53,57,59,61,64].…”

Making Sense of Information Overload: Consumer Ranking of Nutritional Claims in Cereal Based Products

“…The importance given by consumers to the selected claims when shopping two based cereal products was assessed using a direct ranking preference method with primary data from a survey administrated to consumers in a region of Spain in 2017. As prior research has identified that preferences for nutritional claims are heterogeneous across consumers [12][13][14][15][16] and products [17], the specification of the model accommodates differences in preferences across both domains.…”