Substitutes or Complements? Consumers’ Preferences and Willingness to Pay for Animal Welfare, Organic, Local and Low Fat Food Attributes

A choice experiment was carried out in Scotland to assess consumers’ preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for four popular food attributes (i.e. animal welfare, organic, local and low fat attributes) and determine whether these attributes are independent, complement or substitutes. The results showed that the majority of consumers have positive preferences and are willing to pay a price premium for the four attributes. Furthermore, the results from the interactions between attributes showed that labelling organic pork as local could significantly increase its demand. The results also show that the co-existence of animal welfare and organic/local/low fat labels is likely to generate a discounting effect on consumers’ total premium for these bundles of food attributes (i.e. these attributes are perceived by consumers as overlapping). Organic and local attributes were found to be independent.