Consumers’ WTP for certified traceable tea in China
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine consumer attitudes toward and willingness to pay (WTP) for traceability of tea in China.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used the payment card method to elicit WTP for certified traceable tea and logistic regression model to analyze the factors that affected consumers’ WTP.
Findings
The results revealed that most consumers in China were concerned over tea safety; however, their WTP for certified traceable tea was limited. Only income and the degree of concern over tea safety affected the consumer’s WTP for certified traceable tea greatly. When it came to consumers’ WTP a positive price premium, income level, education, and attitude toward traceability of tea significantly influenced the actual premium consumers were willing to pay.
Practical implications
The Chinese government and tea producers should pay attention when implementing tea traceability system. First, raising the consumers’ income contributes to the premiums that consumers are willing to pay for certified traceable tea. Second, social groups, consumer organizations and tea producers should popularize knowledge of tea traceability. Third, given the low price premiums that consumers are willing to pay, the establishment of viable traceability of tea in China requires the producers and the government to bear some of the cost associated with the implementation of this system.
Originality/value
In past studies on WTP for certified traceable food, the study is focussed on meat in developed countries, and the research has expanded range of study, by conducting a survey in China to determine consumers’ WTP for certified traceable tea, and by empirically examining the main factors that influence the willingness of consumers to pay a price premium for certified traceable tea, as well as the premium that these consumers are willing to pay.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This paper was supported by Study of Co-governance for Food Safety Risk in China, one of the Key Projects of National Social Science Foundation of China in 2014 (No. 14ZDA069); Study on the Overall-supervision Mechanism and Supporting Policies of Food Safety Based on Traceability System (No. 12CGL100); Study of Sharing mechanism of additional production cost of the traceability food and government support policy, a general program of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education of China in 2012 (No. 12XJJC790003); Doctor’s Subject Scientific Research Project of Colleges and Universities in 2011: Study on Producers’ Behavior in Food Safety and Traceability System (No. 20110093110007); and Study of Multiple Simulation Experiment on Traceable Food Consumption Policy based on Consumer Preferences: the Case of Pork, a project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71273117).
Citation
Liu, X., Xu, L., Zhu, D. and Wu, L. (2015), "Consumers’ WTP for certified traceable tea in China", British Food Journal, Vol. 117 No. 5, pp. 1440-1452. https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-08-2014-0295
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited