Canadian Consumers’ Preferences for Food Products Produced By Novel Technologies

Abstract

This research examines the applications of novel technologies (nanotechnology and genomics) and the public’s purchasing intentions in the Canadian food industry (national online surveys). Canadian consumers’ preferences and their willingness to pay for four hypothetical products treated with two novel technologies are examined: juice produced with two nanotechnology applications, pork chops and steak which are produced from pigs and cattle bred using genomic information. The respondents were asked to answer a series of stated preference questions to determine their preferences for a specific product produced by means of either of the novel technologies. The choice experiment analysis suggests that a Canadian representative consumer chooses the attributes of higher functionality in the products (e.g. nutrition enhancement, UV-light protection bottle, less disease susceptibility, more feed efficiency) with no novel technology involved. Socio-demographic variables such as trust, levels of education and income, self-assessed extent of knowledge about scientific developments, belief in science and technology advances, having children under 18 in the household, familiarity with nanotechnology prior to survey, and pro-animal welfare attitudes also affect consumers’ preferences regarding the livestock products and their production technologies.