Factoring Chinese consumers' risk perceptions into their willingness to pay for pork safety, environmental stewardship, and animal welfare

Consumers in China have grown increasingly concerned with the safety of their food as evidenced by the numerous media reports of foodborne illness outbreaks in recent years. Consumer confidence in food purchases can be improved through better labeling on food packaging. Chinese consumers' risk perceptions and how it impacts the valuation of a product's attributes in terms of price premiums are explored in this study. As pork is a staple meat in China, a choice modeling approach was used to quantify the economic value of labeling on pork for food safety, country of origin, environment practices, and animal welfare. Risk perceptions of becoming ill from imported or domestic pork were incorporated and willingness to pay (WTP) values were quantified. Results reveal that food safety has the greatest premium among all of the attributes, and incorporating risk perceptions leads to generally higher WTP values. We find evidence that Chinese urban consumers in large cities show a genuine preference for animal welfare and environmental stewardship, independent of the believed better taste and safety of meat from such production practices. Results imply that consumers not only gain the greatest utility from this labeling but also suggest that there is a latent demand for this product characteristic from which foreign and domestic pork producers can benefit. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd.