Journal
FOODS
Volume 11, Issue 17, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/foods11172689
Keywords
China; infant milk formula; consumer preference; choice experiment
Categories
Funding
- Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the People's Republic of China, raw milk quality and safety supervision project [A170202]
- Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program (ASTIP) of CAAS [CAAS-ASTIP2016-AII]
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China, as the largest consumer of IMF, has seen a shift in Chinese parents' preferences towards IMF after the COVID-19 outbreak, prioritizing quality and safety attributes and showing increased confidence in domestically produced IMF.
China is the largest global consumer of infant milk formula (IMF). Chinese consumer preferences towards IMF have evolved over time but have also been rocked in recent years by COVID-19 with major implications for the IMF industry, globally and within China. This study is the first to document parents' preferences toward IMF since the outbreak. We used novel methods to do so, through an online choice experiment of 804 participants that included risk perceptions and socio-demographic variables. Our study finds that Chinese parents continue to prioritize quality and safety attributes of IMF represented by functional ingredients, organic labelling and traceability information. Notably, it also finds greatly increased confidence in Chinese domestically produced IMF and an underlying preference away from expensive products. This implies that the era of 'go for foreign' and 'go for the most expensive' in IMF purchasing may be coming to an end. The shift in sentiment is driven by the longer-term revitalization of the Chinese dairy industry, accelerated by COVID-19. Understanding these trends will be of major benefit to both Chinese producers and non-Chinese exporters of IMF.
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