Do consumers in the UK trade off taste and environmental attributes?

Two large choice experiments were conducted in Spain and the UK to assess consumers’ preferences and willingness to pay for five meat attributes (greenhouse gas emissions from production, type of production (organic/not organic), origin, fat content and price) as well as to analyse whether consumers consider these attributes as complementary, substitute (or overlapping) or independent. The results showed that British and Spanish respondents’ preferences and WTP for the five attributes are quite similar but different for different bundles of attributes. For example, consumers in both countries were found to be willing to pay a price premium for the four attributes in the following decreasing order: beef mince with low-fat content, local beef mince, organic beef mince, and beef mince with low GHG emissions from production. Nonetheless, while Spanish consumers were found to be willing to pay an additional price premium for the bundle of environmental and health attributes, British consumers perceived these attributes as independent (i.e., the case of low GHG emissions and low-fat content attributes) or overlapping (i.e., the case of organic and low-fat content attributes).