South Korean Hotel Meat Buyers' Perceptions of Australian, Canadian and U.S. Beef

Abstract

This study conducted in November 1995 evaluates Korean attitudes towards Canadian beef relative to competing beef from the United States and Australia using a stated preference methodology. Executive chefs and purchasing managers from major 4‐star and 5‐star hotels in South Korea were interviewed. Koren buyers (chefs and purchasing managers) strongly prefer beef from the US with quality similar to US prime. For a comparable high quality beef product from Canada or the US the estimated model predicts there is a 28% chance of the aggregate group choosing Canadian beef versus a 49% chance of this same group choosing US beef. It will generally require significant price cuts or other major marketing efforts to influence non‐Korean chefs and Korean purchasing managers to purchase Canadian beef versus US beef.

Valuing Quality Attributes and Country of Origin in the Korean Beef Market

“…The source of the price difference between Korean beef and imported beef from Australia and New Zealand may be attributable to basic differences in the actual taste of each origin’s beef due to the animals’ feed. Korean beef is grain‐fed beef, which Korean consumers may prefer (Unterschultz et al. , 1998), whereas imported beef from Australia and New Zealand is mostly grass fed.…”

“…A 1995 discrete choice study by Unterschultz et al. (1998) finds that although chefs, both Korean and non‐Korean, prefer US beef, purchasing managers for hotels prefer Korean beef.…”

Territorial Product Associations in Greece: The Case of Olive Oil

“…Moreover, some commentators Unterschultz et al, 1998;Guerro, 1998;DOLPHINS, 2001) suggest that consumers may even exhibit 'ethnocentric' behaviour toward national or even territorial products.…”

Modelling hierarchical consumer preferences: an application to global food markets

“…Expenditure shares may not be the best measure to characterize preference hierarchies. Values for V could be based on stated preference choice experiments, a method that has been employed to identify country of origin effects (see for example, Unterschultz et al, 1998;Kim et al, 2000). 15 The commodities are wheat, other grains, oilseeds, sugar, raw milk, cattle and sheep, pigs and poultry, other agriculture, meat processing, other meat processing, vegetable oils and fats, milk processing, sugar processing, other food processing, other primary, manufacturing and services.…”

“…Whilst empirical studies have tended to concentrate on manufactured goods, there is evidence that food products exhibit strong countryof-origin characteristics (Bonnet and Simioni, 2001;Scarpa et al, 2001;van der Lans et al, 2001) 1 and, furthermore, that consumers typically favour domestic food varieties over foreign substitutes Unterschultz et al, 1998). With international trade in food expanding rapidly in global markets, and consumers facing an unprecedented level of variety, 'product-country images' are assuming greater significance (Skaggs et al, 1996).…”