Consumer Willingness-to-pay for Concord Grape Juice Treated by High-pressure Processing and Pulsed Electric Field

Hu, Anna

Consumer Willingness-to-pay for Concord Grape Juice Treated by High-pressure Processing and Pulsed Electric Field

Abstract

The New York Concord grape industry, the second-largest Concord grape producing statein the country, makes enormous contributions to the labor market and has huge economic impacts in the state. However, change of consumers’ preferences, decreasing consumption of carbohydrate-rich juice, and increasing supply of Concord grape, all have led to price declines of concord grape juice products. New processing technologies including High-pressured Processing and Pulsed Electric Field have been widely discussed to boost consumption of Concord grape juice. We conducted an online survey to investigate consumers’ willingness to pay designing a discrete choice model experiment. Mixed logit models and Latent-class logit models are used to estimate consumers’ willingness to pay toward different attributes including processing technology for the productions of Concord grape juice. We found that consumers tend to pay more for High-pressure processed juice. Among these novel technologies, high-pressure processed juice with Pulsed Electric Field receives the highest willingness-to-pay. This study provides useful suggestions for concord grape juice farmers and juice processors adopting novel processing technologies.

Description

43 pages

Date Issued

2021-08

Committee Chair

Gomez, Miguel I.

Committee Member

Li, Jie

Degree Discipline

Applied Economics and Management

Degree Name

M.S., Applied Economics and Management

Degree Level

Master of Science

Types

dissertation or thesis