Linking consumers’ food choice motives to their preferences for insect‐based food products: An application of integrated choice and latent variable model in an African context

TY - JOUR

T1 - Linking consumers’ food choice motives to their preferences for insect‐based food products

T2 - An application of integrated choice and latent variable model in an African context

AU - Alemu, Mohammed Hussen

AU - Olsen, Søren Bøye

PY - 2019/2/1

Y1 - 2019/2/1

N2 - Consumers’ attitudes, perceptions, personalities and motives play important roles in shaping their food choices. These factors are not fully observed by analysts, so they should be treated as latent variables. A number of economic studies treat such variables as direct measures of consumers’ food choice behaviour, even though this might introduce measurement error and endogeneity bias. We investigate the latent link between consumers’ preferences and food choice motives (FCMs) in an African context. We use an integrated choice and latent variable (ICLV) model specification for data analysis to recognise the latent nature of the FCMs and address the measurement and bias problems. The data originate from an incentivised discrete choice experiment conducted in Kenya to elicit consumers’ preferences for insect‐based foods. Our findings show that consumers’ preferences and choices are influenced by their latent motivational orientation. The results illustrate the benefit of the ICLV approach in accounting for consumers’ latent preference constructs in food choice and valuation research.

AB - Consumers’ attitudes, perceptions, personalities and motives play important roles in shaping their food choices. These factors are not fully observed by analysts, so they should be treated as latent variables. A number of economic studies treat such variables as direct measures of consumers’ food choice behaviour, even though this might introduce measurement error and endogeneity bias. We investigate the latent link between consumers’ preferences and food choice motives (FCMs) in an African context. We use an integrated choice and latent variable (ICLV) model specification for data analysis to recognise the latent nature of the FCMs and address the measurement and bias problems. The data originate from an incentivised discrete choice experiment conducted in Kenya to elicit consumers’ preferences for insect‐based foods. Our findings show that consumers’ preferences and choices are influenced by their latent motivational orientation. The results illustrate the benefit of the ICLV approach in accounting for consumers’ latent preference constructs in food choice and valuation research.

U2 - 10.1111/1477-9552.12285

DO - 10.1111/1477-9552.12285

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0021-857X

VL - 70

SP - 241

EP - 258

JO - Journal of Agricultural Economics

JF - Journal of Agricultural Economics

IS - 1

ER -