The Value of Brand and Convenience Attributes in Highly Processed Food Products

Researchers have long sought to better understand consumer preferences for various packaged foods and their attributes. Beyond price and taste, brand names, convenience, and increasingly diet-health-related cues are regarded as key attributes in attracting consumer demand. This paper applies a hedonic pricing model to a large panel of consumer packaged food products to estimate monetary value of brand, convenience, and other quality attributes in processed meat and seafood products using 200006 Nielsen aggregate weekly scanner data. We find evidence of consumer preferences for perceived natural and health attributes over products with higher degrees of processing. The results further indicate that the process of adding value to food products is intricate and dependent on multiple other indicators of product quality, not least health. As such, frozen natural chicken and seafood products may be considered by certain consumers as substitutes for fresh meat and seafood. This finding may carry further implications for the pricing and marketing of lower-value products.