Consumer perception of cured pork meats : the added value of the organic attribute

Convenience foods, such as cured meats, have always been appreciated in terms of their price, convenience and of course their taste. The pig sector in Italy is substantially stable, and has recently been enhanced by new forms of product differentiation, such as quality certifications. We studied consumer preferences with respect to cured meats from organic farming using a Choice Experiment (CE) and Conditional Logit (CL) approach. In order to estimate consumer attitudes towards organic cured meats, we estimated the weight of externalities that such meats produce presenting them as intrinsic attributes of the product. The final aim was therefore to examine how better health, the protection of biodiversity and the reduction of pollution can affect the choices of organic versus conventional cured meats. Given the characteristics of CE, the trade-offs among these attributes and their value in terms of consumer willingness to pay (WTP) were thus estimated. The results indicate that consumers are well-disposed to organic cured meats, and are aware of the need to support livestock productions that respect the environment and animal welfare.