Purpose

Local origin of meat acts as a key quality indicator for consumers. How an ideal local meat production should look like is rather unknown. The purpose of this study is to comprehensively analyse how an ideal local beef production should be constituted.

Design/methodology/approach

432 consumers from a North Italian province (South Tyrol) were questioned online about their views regarding (local) beef production. 12 attributes, from calf rearing to transport times, were presented with different options. Participants selected the most ideal options from their perspective. Further, willingness to pay for local beef and for the ideally produced local beef as well as the importance of local production for different food categories were assessed.

Findings

The results are quite heterogeneous but show that local production is especially of importance for eggs, dairy products and beef. Traceability to the farms, daily access to a paddock and access to pasture during summer, silage-free feeding, low transport times and suckler cow husbandry are aspects that are mostly selected as ideal. A price premium of 35% for locally produced beef and up to 50% for this ideal production seems reasonable for most consumers.

Research limitations/implications

The study only includes South Tyrolean consumers and thus the validity is limited to this area. Although transferability to other regions can be assumed, future studies are necessary to confirm this assumption.

Originality/value

This is the first study analysing consumers expectations towards local beef production considering several production levels.

中文翻译：

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牛肉应如何生产？消费者对南蒂罗尔（意大利）牛肉生产的期望和看法

目的

肉的本地来源是消费者的关键质量指标。理想的本地肉类生产应该如何看起来是未知的。这项研究的目的是全面分析如何构成理想的当地牛肉生产。

设计/方法/方法

来自意大利北部省（南蒂罗尔州）的432位消费者在网上被问及他们对（本地）牛肉生产的看法。从小牛饲养到运输时间的12个属性具有不同的选择。参与者从他们的角度选择了最理想的选择。此外，评估了为当地牛肉和理想生产的当地牛肉买单的意愿以及当地生产对于不同食品类别的重要性。

发现

结果差异很大，但表明本地生产对于鸡蛋，乳制品和牛肉尤为重要。农场的可追溯性，夏季每天接触围场和牧场，无青贮饲料，运输时间短和奶牛饲养是大多数被选为理想的方面。对于大多数消费者而言，本地生产的牛肉的价格溢价为35％，而这种理想产品的最高价格溢价为50％。

研究局限/意义

该研究仅包括南蒂罗尔州的消费者，因此其有效性仅限于该地区。尽管可以假定可以转移到其他地区，但是需要进一步的研究来确认这一假设。

创意/价值

这是第一项研究，考虑了多个生产水平，分析了消费者对当地牛肉生产的期望。