Fresh foods irrigated with recycled water: A framed field experiment on consumer responses

Does food processing mitigate consumers’ concerns about crops grown with recycled water?

“…with recycled water is particularly interesting and has important policy implications. This result is consistent with a few other studies that found similar effects (Ellis et al, 2018a;Savchenko et al, 2018a). However, our findings do not support the results of prior research that showed consumers lowered their willingness to pay for fresh produce irrigated with recycled water when they received negative information about recycled water and that both positive and negative information increased acceptance of foods irrigated with recycled water (Savchenko et al, 2018a).…”

“…However, numerous studies have shown that consumers in the U.S. are reluctant to accept recycled water when used for products that are ingested or involve personal contact because of its "yuck factor" (Po et al, 2003;Rozin et al, 2015;Kecinski et al, 2016. Consumers' aversion extends to produce from plants irrigated with recycled water (Savchenko et al, 2018a), presenting a serious barrier to widespread adoption of recycled water by U.S. agricultural producers. Therefore, it is important for policymakers, producers and the food industry to thoroughly understand this stigma and ways to mitigate it.…”

“…bathing, skin care products), despite technological advances that can treat the water so it meets both potable and non-potable standards (Po et al, 2003;Po et al, 2005;Dolnicar and Saunders, 2006;Schmidt, 2008;Haddad et al, 2009;Rozin et al, 2015;Hurlimann and Dolnicar, 2016;Kecinski et al, 2016Ellis et al, 2018a). This aversion to recycled water also extends to fresh produce irrigated with recycled water (Savchenko et al, 2018a). Because of the stigma associated with recycled water, some producers have started to advertise their use of fresh irrigation water on product labels (see Figures 1 and 2 for examples).…”

“…The few studies that have used data from economic experiments found that consumers were less willing to pay for wine made from grapes irrigated with recycled water than for grapes irrigated with conventional water (Li et al, 2018) and less willing to pay for fresh produce grown with recycled water than for produce with no label description of the irrigation water used (Savchenko et al, 2018a). Ellis et al, (2018) also showed that the use of recycled water decreased consumers' demand for food products by 87% in the U.S. and that this reduction was dependent upon the type of recycled water used (recycled gray, recycled black and recycled produced).…”

Reclaimed water and food production: Cautionary tales from consumer research

“…One factor that consistently had a negative impact on the acceptance of reclaimed water is the presence of children in a household. Menegaki et al (2007) found that families with children were less likely to visit parks watered with reclaimed water, and Savchenko et al (2018a) found that households that included children were less likely to pay for fresh food, particularly when it was produced with reclaimed water. In another study, however, Savchenko et al (2018b) found that neither gender, education, nor children present in the home had significant impacts on consumer behavior.…”