A Comparison of Consumer Willingness to Pay for Four Types of Sweeteners

As the U.S. consumption of sweeteners has increased, analysis of the demand for sweeteners has become more important. In this paper, consumer willingness-to-pay (WTP) for selected four types of sweeteners is evaluated. The four types of sweeteners are Kentucky grown pure maple syrup, artificially maple flavored syrup, sorghum syrup and molasses. Results suggest that consumers who are at high household income level (above $80,000) and with a smaller household size are likely to pay more for Kentucky grown maple syrup. Results show that there is no statistic difference for the annual household consumption among the four types of sweeteners.