Marco A. Palma

PURCHASING SHRIMP FOR AT-HOME CONSUMPTION: THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF CREDENCE VERSUS PHYSICAL PRODUCT FEATURES

Consumers have become increasingly concerned with the quality, safety and production features of food. Certain population segments will pay more for food products carrying a label identifying credence features that consumers cannot evaluate, even after consumption. Seventy-nine market research questionnaires were completed by consumers purchasing live shrimp at two harvest sales at a University of Florida pond aquaculture facility. A conjoint analysis experiment was included to quantify the utility value and relative importance of seven different shrimp product physical and credence features: species, size, refrigeration state, product form, purchase price, country of origin label, and production method label. Both credence features had positive impacts on shrimp product utility, with country of origin label conferring higher positive utility than any other shrimp feature. Utility associated with wild-harvested shrimp was slightly higher than the utility of farm-raised shrimp. These results provide justification of seafood industry support for mandatory country of origin labeling.

Consumer Response to Point of Purchase Advertising for Local Brands

This study evaluates the effectiveness of a point of purchase advertising program conducted for two local horticultural brands in Texas. The results based on surveys gathered before and after the program was launched suggest that the campaign size was not sufficient to significantly increase brand awareness and overall demand, yet it increased willingness to pay by 5.5% for those consumers aware of one of the brands. A major factor found to increase willingness to pay and likelihood of brand awareness was purchase frequency measured in transactions per month, which suggests that other advertising methods aimed to increase buying frequency might affect demand more effectively.

Domestic and Trade Implications of Leafy Green Marketing Agreement Type Policies and the Food Safety Modernization Act for the Southern Produce Industry

Protecting the safety of the U.S. food supply is a shared responsibility. Accomplishing that task requires the efforts of multiple government agencies combined with private sector participation. Despite the best efforts of the public–private partnership, the presence of microbial contamination incidents continues to raise questions regarding the safety of the U.S. food supply. As a result, there have been increased efforts to take measures to enhance food safety by the government and industry groups. The passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act establishes an increasing role for government in establishing and enforcing food safety standards. This new initiative is designed to address food from domestic and foreign origins. These U.S. government initiatives combined with the labyrinth of food safety standards promoted by international organizations, foreign governments, private-sector retail food sales, food processors, and producers have a common foundation. All of these standards generally apply to four basic biohazards areas: soil, water, animals, and people. However, they all have an effect on the costs that producers and other members of the industry face as they attempt to implement and/or document the multitude of activities required for compliance. This article provides an overview of the evolution of food safety standards related to the fresh produce industry. An example of their potential consequences on the profitability of southern region vegetable producers is provided and the potential impact on import suppliers is discussed.

MARKET PREFERENCES TOWARD FARM-RAISED STURGEON IN THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES: A CONJOINT ANALYSIS

Finfish culturists face relatively low profit margins due to high investment and production costs, prompting farmers to seek higher value species. Sturgeon is viewed as an excellent candidate for culture due to its high quality meat, high value caviar, fast growth rate, excellent feed conversion and hardiness, although little is known concerning buyer demand for sturgeon products. This study employed a mail survey of southeastern U.S. seafood restaurants and retailers, including a conjoint analysis experiment to quantify the utility value and relative importance of key farmer-controllable sturgeon product features. Almost 90% of respondents were not familiar with sturgeon, suggesting the need for industry educational programs. Twenty-one percent of restaurants and 31% of retailers would buy sturgeon products if they were readily available. Conjoint results indicate that a fresh sturgeon fillet is strongly preferred by both market segments; price and seasonal availability are relatively unimportant, especially for seafood restaurants.

A Nonhypothetical Ranking and Auction Mechanism for Novel Products

Preferences for pomegranates, including some novel pomegranate varieties, were evaluated using an experimental auction and nonhypothetical preference ranking mechanism. Additional information on the taste and health benefits of the products was provided to mimic the information-gathering process on novel products. Product familiarity, product information, and reference prices were key factors in explaining willingness to pay for the included novel products. Results from the auction and nonhypothetical preference ranking procedures were divergent. Furthermore, interactions were detected between information treatments and product characteristics.

Implications of U.S. Trade Agreements and U.S. Nutrition Policies for Produce Production, Demand, and Trade

This study used aggregated data for fresh vegetables and fresh fruits to analyze how trade flows in the fresh produce industry have changed under trade agreements and to assess the potential implications to nutrition policies in the United States. The first part of the analysis uses a Bai-Perron test to endogenously determine any structural break points in vegetable and fruit trade movements and prices. Directed acyclic graphs and historical decompositions are used to establish causal patterns on innovations from vector autoregression models fitted to annual observations of trade flows, prices, and income. The results showed that trade agreements have had significant impacts to the produce industry. Income was a major determinant of domestic fruit production and imports.

Fashionable food: a latent class analysis of social status in food purchases

ABSTRACT A framed field experiment combined with a latent class econometric approach was used to investigate how prestige-seeking behaviour influences food choices. We propose a theoretical framework to test conspicuous consumption of specialty food products. We test the hypothesis empirically by categorizing individuals into unobserved latent classes according to their general prestige-seeking behaviour. We find evidence of food consumption driven by prestige to the point of becoming a symbol of social status. The prestige-seeking behaviour seems to be motivated by invidious comparison or higher-class individuals seeking to differentiate themselves from lower-class individuals; and pecuniary emulation, or lower-class individuals buying prestigious goods in order to be perceived as members of a higher class. Findings from this study revealed that the effects of differentiating labelling attributes had a higher impact for individuals classified into classes with prestige-seeking behaviour to attain an elevated social status.

Buying Your Way into a Healthier Lifestyle: A Latent Class Analysis of Healthy Food Purchases

ABSTRACT A nonhypothetical second-price Vickrey auction was conducted to elicit consumer preferences and willingness-to-pay (WTP) for vegetable attributes, including production technique, origin, taste and health benefits. Using a latent class analysis (LCA) we segmented participants based on health-driven motivations, WTP estimates and socio-economic characteristics. Two latent classes were found and characterized as: ‘Health Conscious’ and ‘Health Redeemers’. In particular, the ‘Health Conscious’ consumers presented healthy lifestyle habits, expressed price premiums for domestic and local-specialty food products after a blind tasting treatment, but they did not have price premiums for health benefits of the products. On the contrary, the ‘Health Redeemers’ presented unhealthy lifestyles but they were willing to pay more for healthy food products, perhaps in an attempt to make up for their unhealthy habits.

Vegetable Crops: Linking Production, Breeding and Marketing

Vegetable production has been a major and dynamic activity devised by diverse human cultures to sustain their livelihood for centuries. Vegetables, being several times more productive per unit area than cereals, can play a vital role in facing food security and nutrition challenges in the coming decades. However, the predicted climate change and increased demand on limited land and water resources makes water conservation a key component of vegetable production systems. At the same time, there is an increased global demand for healthy and nutritious vegetables. Dramatic improvements have been achieved through breeding for important abiotic stresses and quality traits in many vegetables. Thus, successful emerging small or large commercial farmers now apply integrated strategies from farm to table, including planting, grafting, irrigation, use of modern cultivars and innovative marketing tools. In this chapter we highlight some technological advances in vegetable production, with emphasis on stand establishment and irrigation management for water-limited areas. We discuss the impact of breeding and genetics on the improvement of abiotic stress tolerance and provide evidences on the use of improved germplasm and cultivars to enhance the quality of vegetables. Finally, we discuss the critical role of marketing and consumer trends for vegetable products.

Reducing Brain Signal Noise in the Prediction of Economic Choices: A Case Study in Neuroeconomics

In order to reduce the noise of brain signals, neuroeconomic experiments typically aggregate data from hundreds of trials collected from a few individuals. This contrasts with the principle of simple and controlled designs in experimental and behavioral economics. We use a frequency domain variant of the stationary subspace analysis (SSA) technique, denoted as DSSA, to filter out the noise (nonstationary sources) in EEG brain signals. The nonstationary sources in the brain signal are associated with variations in the mental state that are unrelated to the experimental task. DSSA is a powerful tool for reducing the number of trials needed from each participant in neuroeconomic experiments and also for improving the prediction performance of an economic choice task. For a single trial, when DSSA is used as a noise reduction technique, the prediction model in a food snack choice experiment has an increase in overall accuracy by around 10% and in sensitivity and specificity by around 20% and in AUC by around 30%, respectively.