Measuring Consumer Resistance to Innovation in Meat Packaging-Evidence from Choice Experiments

• Author / Creator

  Chen, Qing

• In this thesis, consumers’ perceptions and willingness-to-pay for a new packaging technology for beef steaks, vacuum packaging, are measured using real choice experiments and different information scenarios. The findings suggest that information plays an important role in consumers’ attitudes towards vacuum packaged beef steaks: beneficial information affects consumers’ behaviour in a positive way and is more dominant after negative information has been provided. There was no significant evidence to support that consumers are willing to pay more for beef steak with a long shelf-life or beef ageing. The Food Technology Neophobia Scale (FTNS) was used to measure differences in consumers’ perceptions of food innovation. The findings show that there were no significant relationships between socio-demographic characteristics with FTNS. Using mixed logit models, a consumer’s willingness to purchase vacuum packaged beef steak increased with the education level, the income level, the presence of children in the household, and decreased with FTNS scores.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Consumer behaviour
  • Innovations
  • Meat packaging

• Graduation date

  Spring 2012

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R32B0X

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.