Combining healthiness and sustainability: An analysis of consumers’ preferences and willingness to pay for functional and sustainable snack bars

Abstract

Despite the growing attention paid by consumers and policy makers to health and sustainability issues, contribution analyzing consumers attitude towards both health related and sustainability attributes of foods are lacking. This study aims to investigate consumers’ preferences and willingness to pay for sustainable functional foods, in particular snack bars with high anti-oxidant value and made with a sustainable production process. Results show consumers’ willingness to pay a price premium of 0.30€ for the purchase of such foods. The amount of price premium increases as income increases. Furthermore, women, health-conscious individuals and those more likely to try new foods are willing to pay more for the purchase of sustainable functional snack bars. The preferred attributes are those related to the healthiness, while those related to the sustainability are not considered relevant. The present study enriches literature on functional foods, also providing insights for policy makers and practitioners.

Keywords

• Consumer behavior
• Willingness to pay
• Functional foods
• Best-worst
• Tobit regression