Consumers’ Willingness-to-Pay for Retail Branded Beef Products with Bundled Attributes

With a declining share of the domestic meat market, some beef producers are becoming more attentive to opportunities for value-added products tailored to the desires of certain consumer segments. Using a survey of St. Louis and Kansas City, Missouri meat consumers, this study investigates perceptions of and willingness-to-pay for various value-added attributes that could be supplied as retail branded beef products. Factor analysis identifies two alternative attribute bundles as branding strategies based on perceived importance and complementarity of attributes. Nonparametric procedures provide conservative estimates of willingness-to-pay. Parametric methods identify types of consumers willing to pay significantly higher premiums