Consumer inferences of food safety and quality

Economists frequently use choice experiments (CEs) to evaluate demand for new attributes in food products. Using a split-sample experimental design focused on demand for pork chop attributes, we find consumer inferences regarding food safety and quality to impact estimates of marginal willingness to pay, market participation, policy appropriateness and consumer welfare effects. Our results suggest that interpretation of findings should be noted as conditional on attributes included in original analyses. A split-sample experimental approach involving multiple CE designs is described and suggested to practitioners to better consider consumer inference effects in future studies.