Elsevier

Food Policy

Volume 44, February 2014, Pages 167-176
Food Policy

European consumer preferences for beef with nutrition and health claims: A multi-country investigation using discrete choice experiments

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2013.11.006Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Error component modelling confirms taste heterogeneity across countries.

  • Claims on iron, protein and saturated fat in beef raise choice probability.

  • Consumers perceive and value different claims dissimilarly.

  • Claims on saturated fat are less valued in the UK.

  • Health claims do not consistently outperform nutrition claims on beef.

Abstract

The European Union (EU) nutrition labelling policy aims to facilitate consumers’ food choice, stimulate innovation and facilitate the circulation of foods bearing claims across countries. However, the beef industry has not fully taken advantage of utilizing nutrition and health claims based on the EU nutrition labelling policy to differentiate beef products in the market. This study investigates consumer preferences for nutrition and health claims on lean beef steak. Two choice experiments were conducted among 2400 beef consumers in four EU countries (Belgium, France, the Netherlands, United and United Kingdom). Multinomial logit and error component models were estimated. Our results generally suggest that consumer valuation of nutritional and health claims varies across countries. In Belgium, the Netherlands and France, nutrition and health claims on saturated fat yielded higher utilities than claims on protein and/or iron, while the opposite was found among consumers in the UK. The results imply that marketing opportunities related to nutrition and health claims on beef are promising, but that different nutritional marketing strategies are necessary within different countries.

Section snippets

1. Introduction

Consumer perceptions of the nutritional value of beef are not unequivocally positive (Van Wezemael et al., 2010). Personal health concerns have arisen, among others about the fat content in beef and the possible negative effect on consumers’ cholesterol levels. Although there is no conclusive evidence that moderate consumption of beef, as part of a healthy diet, has negative health effects (Wyness et al., 2011), recent research and consumer concerns about the association between red meat and

2. Background

For the food industry, the successful application of nutrition and health claims on food products remains a complex issue. For instance, some of the nutrient or ingredient claims may be perceived positively or negatively by consumers irrespective of their actual need or function in a healthy balanced diet (Biesalski et al., 2011). Hence, not all combinations of carrier product, nutrient or functional ingredient, and claims are equally attractive to consumers (Verbeke et al., 2009). Not only

3. Materials and methods

This study uses choice experiments to investigate consumer preferences for nutrition and health claims in lean beef steaks. This methodological section introduces the chosen product, attributes and levels. The choice experimental design and data collection procedures as well as the econometric approach to choice analysis are then explained.

4.1. Characteristics of the sample

The characteristics of the participants in the four national samples are shown in Table 2. The distributions over household composition, educational degree, and occupational activities show that the sample covered a wide range of individuals. The reference population census values between brackets show that the sample is fairly representative for the national populations in terms of gender and age.

4.2. European consumer preferences for nutrition and health claims

Appendix B and Table 3 report the estimated parameters for the MNL and the EC

5. Discussion

This study aimed to investigate consumer preferences and WTP for nutrition and health claims on beef steak. Our results indicated that in general (negatively framed) claims on saturated fat yielded higher utilities and WTP than (positively framed) claims on protein and/or iron, in contrast to evidence from the health framing literature suggesting that positive framing results in more positive product evaluations. This finding can possibly be explained by the fact that protein and iron are

6. Conclusion

The results from this study have implications for the general public, food policy makers and food companies interested in applying nutritional marketing. For the general public, a nutrition and/or health claim that they would value could help them make better informed decisions on whether to buy or consume the product or not, and to make choices better in line with their actual preferences. Furthermore, opportunities offered by using nutrition and health labels or claims can stimulate healthier

Acknowledgement

This work has been performed within the EU FP6 Integrated Project ProSafeBeef, Contract No. FOOD-CT-2006-36241. The financing of the work by the European Union is gratefully acknowledged.

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    Project work completed under the auspices of the Agricultural University of Athens.

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