Assessing consumer preferences for quality and safety attributes of food in the absence of official standards: the case of beef in Ethiopia

Conjoint analysis was applied to asses the part worth of beef quality and safety attributes using a cross sectional data from a stratified sample of 300 households in Addis Ababa city collected in June 2007. Due to the absence of official standards for quality and safety in the domestic market for beef, information on consumer perception on quality and safety attributes were derived from a rapid appraisal. These were then used for defining product profiles in the detailed survey. Results show that, freshness, abattoir stamp, fat content, hygiene of meat shop and staff, and price are significant quality and safety attributes that consumers use, in the order mentioned, in their beef purchase decisions. There are differences in the relative importance of these attributes among income classes. Freshness was most important for low income households while fat content was most important for high income households. Abattoir stamp was less important for low income households but very important for high income households. Hygiene was rated high by the higher income households and low by lower income households. Price was the least important attribute for quality and safety for the entire sample as well as for different income groups. The result of the study could be used for designing safety and quality standard for local wet market and gradually revise such standards as more empirical information on changing consumer demand for quality and safety become available. Further, the consistency of results between the PRA and the detailed survey indicate that carefully designed PRA could be a useful tool for generating information on consumer behaviour and preference in the face of time and resource constraints.