Study examines social status in food buying habits
College Station — A recent study examining the reasons why consumers pay higher prices for certain foods — be it for fashion, social standing or to advance a healthier lifestyle — revealed food costs may be too high for some consumers.
Dr. Marco Palma, Dr. David Anderson and Meghan Ness, all with the department of agricultural economics at Texas A&M University in College Station, conducted field experiments to see why consumers pay more for certain foods with perceived premium labeling. The study was published recently in the Applied Economics journal.
“While nutritional policies promote the consumption of high-quality healthy food products, the reality is that the cost of healthy and nutritious food may be too high for some consumers to bear, deeming health promotion policies ineffective,” Palma said. “It is precisely that cost differential in food that has opened the door for food to become a symbol of social status.”
The study found that prestige-seeking individuals may be more likely to be early adopters for new production technologies or practices “since they are more responsive to labeling attributes.” Study results also indicated evidence linking food choices and diet quality with income.
The study included 201 participants who entered a baseline sealed-bid auction of lettuces with no information available. A second bidding round was conducted after half of the participants were allowed a blind tasting, while the other half received labeling information such as organic, conventional and hydroponically produced lettuces, Palma said.
Having studied the group demographics on income, employment, marital status, education and race, the team was able to establish latent class segmentation of the group based on prestigeseeking food buying behaviors. The four classes designated as part of the experiment were: Class 1, ambitious shoppers; Class 2, utilitarian buyers; Class 3, affluent elitists; and Class 4, prestige lovers.
Prestige seeking among young consumers seemed to be in line with recent work linking millennial’s self-image and conspicuous consumption with materialism. Social media plays a key role, since it is often used as a way to showcase the consumption of prestigious goods in order to project a positive self-image
The largest segment, the utilitarian class, paid the least and focused on functionality of the product. The other groups all displayed prestige-seeking behaviors and were willing to pay more.
The buying behaviors illustrate the efficacy of labeling to enable producers to boost product prices where information is provided to the consumer. However, current literature shows evidential links between diet quality and income, indicating reduced purchase capacity of lower-income shoppers.
“We found that sellers may be able to boost premium prices paid by prestige-seeking individuals through customer education and marketing,” Palma said. “The increasing gap in food prices associated with diet quality may be reflecting the reality of a lower purchase capacity by low-income consumers.”
The paper can be viewed at http://bit.ly/2kbcm1o.