Consumer Preference for Beef’s Attributes in Indonesia: An Online Survey using Discrete Choice Experiment

Beef consumption among Indonesian continues to increase every year. Based on BPS (2020), from 2010-2019 beef consumption per capita of Indonesian increased by an average of 2.04% per year. The high level of beef consumption is expected to impact increasing beef demand in Indonesia (Kementerian Pertanian, 2019). However, domestic production can only meet about 45% of Indonesia's beef needs (Smith et al., 2018). To meet the demand, the Indonesia Government has imported meat. Research conducted by Hidayat (2019); Huillier et al., (2018), shows that Indonesia consumers tend to prefer local over imported beef. In contrast, local beef has lower quality than imported beef because most cattle are employed, with low quality of feeding, older slaughter age, and does not pay attention to animal welfare aspects (Nuraini et al., 2019). However, this gap could not indicate that Indonesian consumer more prefers in low quality beef, because there are many factors affect their decision. Therefore, revealing Indonesian consumers' preference for beef’s attribute for local and imported beef study is needed. This research aims to analyse consumer preferences and consumer willingness to pay for beef’s attributes in Indonesia. This research used a quantitative approach, Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE). The sample of this research are beef consumers in Indonesia who are responsible for buying and cooking food for the family. The data collection technique was carried out online using a google form distributed to beef consumers through social media such as WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and direct messages through the Shopee and Tokopedia market places. The data analysis method in this study used the Conditional Logit analysis method and the Marginal Willingness to Pay analysis using the RStudio application analysis tool. The study results show that the consumer characteristics of the 378 respondents are dominated by married women with an age range of 29-39 years, 4- 6 members, and domiciled in East Java. Most of the respondents have SI/SII/SIII education and work as housewives with a household income of Rp 3,000,001 – Rp 5,000,000. The place to buy beef that many respondents choose is the traditional market. In addition, consumer preference for meat in Indonesia, namely beef originating from Indonesia, which is equipped with a BSE-tested certificate, has moderate marbled and tends to have lower prices. And consumer willingness to pay analysis shows that beef consumers in Indonesia are willing to pay more for the marbling attribute, namely beef with moderate marbled. And consumers are not willing to pay more for the attributes of the country of origin and food safet