Factors Influencing Italian Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Eggs Enriched with Omega-3-Fatty Acids

Abstract

This paper focused on eggs enriched with omega-3-fatty acids with the aim of understanding if functional eggs were of interest to Italian consumers, and analyzing which characteristics of table egg quality, consumers’ attitudes and socio-demographic characteristics affect the consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) a premium price for eggs enriched with omega-3-fatty acids. We performed an online survey on 312 Italian consumers. The analysis was based on the Tobit regression model. The findings showed that unmarried females were more willing to pay a premium price for functional eggs than male consumers. Furthermore, the probability of showing a higher WTP for functional eggs increased among consumers reporting a higher income. Moreover, the WTP for functional eggs increased with the growing importance that people attributed to items such as the size of eggs, rearing type, feed given to chickens, and the provenience and brand of eggs. These results suggested that consumers need to have clear information about functional eggs. As expected, WTP for functional eggs decreased with increasing neophobia and food techno-neophobia factors. In conclusion, the findings showed an interesting potential for eggs enriched with omega-3-fatty acids, which seems to be a product with high possibility to be greatly appreciated on the market, especially if accompanied by a good, informative campaign for increasing people’s knowledge level.