Abstract
We investigate the effects on consumer’s utility of price and remaining days until sell-by date of food, using a conjoint analysis. Examples of the food products we consider in our analysis are eggs, noodles, and cookies. We find that consumers prefer foods that have a longer shelf-life. Furthermore, the result of our analysis on eggs shows that consumer’s utility increases with price, when the price exceeds a critical level. This is because consumers may perceive a correlation between a higher price and safer foods.
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Yoshida, Y., Takeuchi, K., Ishikawa, M. et al. Too Cheap to Eat: The Signaling Effect of Price on Food Safety. IJEPS 4, 173–184 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03405721
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03405721