Agricultural News
OSU Food Demand Survey Shows Consumers Willing to Pay More for Hamburger- Less for Chicken
Fri, 20 Dec 2013 04:59:52 CST
U.S. consumers in December say that they are willing to pay more for hamburger, but less for steak, chicken breast, pork chops, deli ham and chicken wings, according to Oklahoma State University's monthly Food Demand Survey (FooDS) released earlier this week on December 17. The study's author is Dr. Jayson Lusk, who sits in the Willard Sparks Endowed Chair in the Department of Ag Economics at OSU.
The survey showed consumers willing to pay $4.20 per pound for hamburger, up from $3.97 a month ago. However, consumers were only willing to pay $4.52 per pound for chicken breast, down from $5.03 a month ago. They were willing to pay $3.61 per pound for pork chops, down from $3.75 last month. The Willingness to Pay (WTP) for Chicken breast and chicken wings fell to the lowest levels since the survey was started in May. Although WTP for steak fell only 4.32% from November to December, it too fell to the lowest level seen since FooDS started.
In addition to tracking what consumers expect to spend on food and what they are willing to pay for specific meat items, FooDS also measures the awareness of various issues that could affect their willingness to buy one meat product or another- and at the same time has a separate measurement that reflects what issues consumers are actually worried about at that point in time.
Salmonella, GMO's and E.coli were reported as most visible in the news over the last two weeks; the largest jump in awareness was for GMOs and farm animal welfare, and the biggest falls were for Salmonella , E. coli and bird flu. E.coli , Salmonella and hormones remained consumers' top three concerns when purchasing food; concern for all issues fell in December, with the largest percent declines occurring for battery cages, cloning, and gestation crates
The survey also asked consumers about some of their values that impact the food buying experience. According to the survey summary, "Taste, safety and price remained most important values to consumers when purchasing food. Consumer values remained similar to those in past months, with a slight increase in perceived value of origin.
"Again, consumers reported that their main challenge faced this month was finding affordable foods to fit within their budget. Avoiding pesticides, added hormones and antibiotics and finding food their children will eat were ranked last. The challenge of losing weight experienced the largest increase in December."
FooDS is a monthly on-line survey with a sample size of at least 1,000 individuals, weighted to match the US population in terms of age, gender, education and region of residence.
OSU has release a PDF summary of the December FooDS report- click here to open and review.
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