Agri-food companies face the challenge that clean labels and organic are not possible for some processed foods – such as shelf-stable ready meals – with existing processing technologies. This study uses data collected via an online survey and estimates consumers’ willingness to pay for the attributes organic, clean label, and processed with a new food technology in a ready meal. Based on previous literature, one would expect that consumers who prefer a clean label would also prefer a product that is certified organic. However, it was found that consumers who frequently purchase ready meals, prefer a clean label over the organic certification. Results from a latent class analysis identified three classes of consumers within the sample of respondents, the pro-organic and clean label consumer, the pro-clean label and new technology, and the indifferent consumer. The classes of consumers identified in this study, showed heterogeneous preferences towards the organic and clean label attributions, which emphasizes the need to complement the consumer preference assessment with a segmentation analysis. Our findings highlight the importance of technological innovations and the need of presenting consumers with complete information on the new food technologies to mitigate potential neophobias due to unfamiliarity.

中文翻译：

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消费者愿意为有机的，干净的标签付款，并愿意使用新的食品技术进行加工：即食食品的应用

农业食品公司面临的挑战是，采用现有加工技术，某些加工食品（如货架稳定的即食食品）不可能使用干净的标签和有机食品。这项研究使用了通过在线调查收集的数据，并估计了消费者愿意为有机，清洁标签属性付款的意愿，并在即食食品中使用新食品技术对其进行了处理。根据以前的文献，人们会希望喜欢干净标签的消费者也会喜欢经过认证的有机产品。但是，发现经常购买即食食品的消费者更喜欢干净的标签，而不是有机认证的标签。潜在类别分析的结果在受访者样本中确定了三类消费者：亲有机和清洁标签消费者，亲清洁标签和新技术，和冷漠的消费者。在这项研究中确定的消费者类别显示出对有机和清洁标签归因的异类偏好，这强调了需要通过细分分析来补充消费者偏好评估。我们的发现强调了技术创新的重要性以及向消费者提供有关新食品技术的完整信息的必要性，以减轻由于不熟悉而引起的潜在的恐新症。