Beef safety certification: A contingent valuation study of Malay consumers
The objective of this study was to determine the Malay consumers’ willingness to-pay (WTP) for food safety with reference to beef consumption. A total of 243 respondents were interviewed for this purpose. The Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) was used to determine the consumers’ WTP for the consumption of safer beef. A logit and probit model was used to estimate the premium that consumers are willing to pay for beef. The results indicated the important factors that influenced as well as determined the amount of premium a consumer was willing to pay for beef were household incomes and price levels. Based on this study, it was found that the demand and consumption of beef was still high despite the food contamination incidents in the country recently. However, many Malay consumers were becoming more vigilant when buying beef due to concern on health and diet. This trend will certainly have effects on the present market for beef. Hence, to ensure a better development of the beef market, there is a need to develop proper standards, policies and campaign programmes for meat safety, and to step up the efforts of research and development (R&D) to improve the
production technologies and food safety systems for beef.