Consumers' willingness to pay for light, organic and PDO cheese An experimental auction approach

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to assess consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for three different food claims on semi-cured, pasteurized sheep milk cheese. In particular, the authors used a health-related claim (the nutritional claim indicating a reduced fat content: "light"), a regional claim ("designation of origin - PDO") and an organic claim (the European organic logo). Moreover, the authors investigated whether consumers' personal characteristics could influence their WTP for those types of cheese. Design/methodology/approach - A home-grown experimental auction was applied in Spain during Spring 2012. The authors opted to use the nth random price with repeated rounds and without price feedback. Findings - The results show that consumers were willing to pay more for PDO cheese, followed by organic and light cheese. Moreover, respondents who were female, older and with a university-level education showed some environmental concerns, influencing their WTP for different cheeses. Originality/value - Empirical evidence on consumers' preferences for PDO, organic and nutritional claims, evaluated jointly, is lacking in Spain. Moreover, the home-grown auction has several merits in terms of real market simulation and consumer preference application.