Consumer preferences for safety characteristics in pork

Purpose – The objective of this paper is to provide information that can guide governmental intervention strategies to increase demand-driven supply of food safety. The secondary aim is to rank safety attributes relative to other quality characteristics that consumers associate with pork. Design/methodology/approach – Consumers' preferences for safety as a quality characteristic in pork are investigated using choice experiments. An internet-based survey was carried out with 1,322 Danish consumers. Findings – There is a clear ranking of characteristics: domestic produce and low fat are valued as the most important attributes associated with minced pork, followed by reduced Salmonella risks, reduced use of antimicrobial agents, and increased animal welfare. In addition, it is found that consumers stated a clear willingness-to-pay for all the assessed product attributes – including the safety attributes. Practical implications – The positive price premiums for safer food suggest that demand-driven market-based solutions might indeed be used to increase the supply of safer food – provided that adequate labelling allows consumers to distinguish between products that differ from each other only with respect to non-visible safety characteristics. However, it is not suggested that food safety can be left entirely to be determined by market forces due to market failures, consumer preferences and large uncertainties. Originality/value – Earlier studies have not identified a unique ranking of the importance of safety relative to other quality characteristics in meat products. The main concern is that the value of food safety may be overestimated when it is not valued relative to a full set or as close to a full set as possible of other quality characteristics, which has been attempted in the present survey.