Improving poultry meat and sales channels to address food safety concerns: consumers' preferences on poultry meat attributes

Purpose This study explains Indonesian consumers' choice of poultry meat attributes and the willingness to pay (WTP) for these attributes using a discrete choice experiment. Design/methodology/approach The survey was conducted for the traditional and modern channels and involved a sample of 440 respondents in the Greater Jakarta area. A discrete choice experiment was employed as the study framework and in designing the questionnaire. A multinomial logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate consumers' preference for poultry attributes in modern and traditional channels. Findings Consumers preferred warm poultry meat, government certification and product information labeling on poultry meat. The WTP for warm poultry meat was the highest, which is indicating that freshness is crucial for consumers to ensure quality. Moreover, consumers had more trust in government certification than private certification for food safety and were willing to pay more for product information labeling on poultry meat. Practical implications The government can use the model as a decision support to improve poultry meat quality at sales channels in Indonesia including to close sales channels where sick poultry are sold and thus address food safety concerns caused by the avian influenza outbreak. Originality/value This study shows that understanding the WTP for poultry meat attributes enables the government to control the poultry sales channels and stimulates producers to supply the market with a safer poultry meat quality using the price mechanism.