An investigation of consumers' preference and willingness to pay for fish welfare in Denmark: A discrete choice modeling approach

Farmed fish welfare has become an important factor in consumers' purchasing decisions. The objective of this study is twofold: (1) to investigate consumers' preference and willingness to pay for farmed fish welfare and (2) to measure the effect of social desirability on consumers' responses. A self-administered online survey was developed and distributed to an Internet panel in Denmark. Discrete choice experiment was used to elicit consumers' preference and willingness to pay for fish welfare. Direct and indirect questioning were used when an individual was asked to make a decision in the discrete choice experiment. Respondents were asked to make their own purchase decision in direct questioning (i.e., the fish product s/he would like to buy), while in indirect questioning, they were asked to make decisions for others (i.e., the most sold product in the market). The results revealed that attributes such as the form of fish, labeling, price, and premium had an influence on consumers' choice of fish. Specifically, consumers were generally willing to pay more in premium for fish that had a "fish welfare guaranteed" label. Consumer heterogeneity was disclosed in consumer preference and willingness to pay. Results also showed that consumers believe other consumers would be likely to pay less for fish welfare than themselves. Thus, the results revealed that social desirability could create bias when valuing fish welfare.