Consumer Willingness to Pay for Swiss Chicken Meat: An In-store Survey to Link Stated and Revealed Buying Behaviour

In a global economy food origin is gainingincreasing attention as determining purchase criterionin food consumption. Consequently, for many consumersa product’s country-of-origin (COO) is an importantcue in evaluating both domestic and foreign products.A double-bounded dichotomous choice approach in anin-store setting was used to assess consumers’ preferenceand willingness-to-pay (WTP) for the product attribute“Swiss origin” relative to “European origin” for chickenmeat. Data collection took place in the poultry section ofsix grocery stores in Francophone Switzerland. Sampleselection was based on the consumer’s purchase decision,that is only actual chicken buyers were questioned.During the survey product data of participants’ actualpurchase were recorded. Thus, both hypothetical statedand revealed consumer behaviour data were collected.Based on 450 records we highlight four different consumersegments, notably “Loyal Swiss”, “Low PriceSwiss Zappers”, “Price Orientated”, and „The Gourmets”.At an equal price, 90% of the entire sample prefersSwiss chicken meat. To elicit mean WTP for “Swiss origin”we used logit analysis. The results indicate thatmean WTP differs significantly between the highlightedconsumer segments. “Loyal Swiss” – medium to highpriced Swiss chicken meat consumers – are willing topay a premium of about 7.40 Euros per kilo chickenbreast of Swiss origin. This premium corresponds withactual price differences of at most 7.50 €/kg for Swisschicken breast relative to European found in the researchedgrocery stores. “Low Price Swiss Zappers” arewilling to pay a premium of 2.10 €/kg chicken breast ofSwiss origin. In contrast, the “Price Orientated” and„The Gourmets” are not willing to pay any premium forSwiss origin. This corresponds with their revealed purchasebehaviour as they bought imported Europeanchicken. Considering mean WTP for the entire sampleof 3.00 €/kg for Swiss origin, we conclude that this is nota good predictor for specific consumer segments. Itover-, or underestimates mean WTP of the highlightedconsumer segments. Using both stated and revealed consumerbehaviour data, we are able to calculate consumergroup specific mean WTP which leads to moreappropriate results for agribusiness and marketing purposes.