STRENGTHENING U.S. BEEF EXPORT MARKETS: ANALYSIS OF CONSUMER WILLINGNESS TO PAY AND IMPORT DEMAND

Major goals:To assess consumer WTP for foreign beef, and determine which beef attributes are favored by customers in the selected countries;To identify consumer characteristics driving preferences for U.S. beef products and competing products from other exporting countries;To estimate import demand for beef products differentiated by country of origin in the selected importing countries;To compare and contrast the WTP and import demand estimates to assess how trade patterns and import demand preferences reflect the detailed information obtained from consumers within the importing countries;To identify differences between consumers across the selected countries to tailor strategies for global marketing activities.More specifically, our objectives are to:Conduct choice experiment studies in Japan, Mexico, China, Germany, and the UK to examine:Consumer preferences and WTP for U.S. beef, as well as beef from other countries, and other relevant beef attributes, such as, no added growth hormones, food safety certification;Underlying behavioral drivers of preferences and WTP for U.S. beef and its attributes, such as, trust, ethnocentrism, and personality to provide recommendations for marketing activities;Differences between consumers across the selected countries in order to design targeted marketing activities.Conduct beef import demand analyses using a dynamic framework for Japan, Mexico, China, Germany, and the UK to assess:The competition across exporting countries for disaggregated beef products in the selected markets;Differences in key import demand factors across countries such as trending behavior, habit formation, expenditure allocation, and own- and cross-price competition;The degree to which import demand behavior is explained by and reinforces the consumer preferences and WTP estimates from the choice experiments and surveys.