Effect of fibre information on consumer willingness to pay for French baguettes

The objective of this study was to assess the impact of nutritional information on the willingness to pay for bread. Four French baguettes were presented to 123 consumers who firstly gave liking scores in three evaluation conditions, and who then gave their maximum price (reservation price) they were ready to pay in two information steps. in the first step, the baguettes were presented without any information about their composition. Following this, half the participants received information about the potential health benefits of fibre. In the second step, two baguettes were presented with a 'source of fibre' label. A similar product hierarchy was observed between hedonic scores and reservation prices. In addition, a significant effect was found on the reservation prices when the 'source of fibre' label was presented, but no effect was observed when the information concerning the potential health benefits of fibre was given. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.