EDMONTON – Consumers in countries that have had a food safety scare are more willing to pay for the ability to trace the food back to the producer, than countries that haven’t had a food scare, says an American professor.
North American consumers rate animal welfare, food safety or a combination of them above the value of traceability, said DeeVon Bailey, a Utah State University professor. He used a type of auction to test consumer willingness to pay for traceability and other characteristics.
Yet in the European Union and Japan where there have been incidents of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, there was a connection between food safety and traceability, he said.
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“Consumers in Canada and the United States weren’t connecting the dots so they weren’t willing to pay,” said Bailey.
He predicted attitudes in Canada would change if he conducted the survey after the discovery of a single cow with BSE.
“Almost certainly now in Canada there will be a more willingness to pay.”
During his presentation, Bailey gave each participant $20 and a free lunch consisting of a sandwich that they could exchange using their money to pay for added features in the sandwich.
They were told the sandwich they were given met all the existing federal health and safety standards. Using their money they could exchange the sandwich for one that gave added assurance. Sandwich 1 was from animals that were treated humanely.
The second sandwich was from meat that had been given extra food safety tests to check for E. coli and salmonella.
Sandwich 3 was meat that could be traced back to the farm. Sandwich 4 had all the attributes of the above sandwiches together.
In Canada, 13 percent desired a sandwich that would assure the humane treatment of animals. Slightly more than 12 percent wanted the extra assurance of food safety. Less than seven percent were willing to pay for the ability to trace the source of the meat back to the farm. Twenty-six percent wanted a combination of all the attributes.
“Traceability was the least valued of the individual characteristics,” said Bailey.
In the U.S., food safety was the most valued individual characteristic, but in the EU and Japan, there was no difference between food safety and traceability.
That ability to trace the animal back to the farm in Europe has been successful in regaining public confidence, he said.
