Multiple studies point to the value consumers place on Florida citrus and their willingness to pay for the “Florida” brand.
Lisa House, director of the Florida Agricultural Market Research Center and a professor in the Food and Resource Economics Department at the University of Florida, recently spoke on this subject in a Florida Department of Citrus webinar. She provided an overview of the impacts of marketing “Florida” as an attribute on consumers’ willingness to pay for orange juice (OJ).
According to House, Florida has been associated with quality citrus for a long time. In a 2014 study, consumers indicated they perceived Florida as the leader in citrus that produced the most quality OJ for the best price. Moving forward, researchers wanted to know if these perceptions still held true, specifically looking at how “Florida” influences consumers’ willingness to pay.
House reported that consumers indicated a very high willingness to pay $4.29 per carton for “100% Florida” OJ compared to OJ that didn’t have information about Florida.
Similarly, for the containers that were marked “at least 50% from Florida” and “bottled from Florida,” consumers had a higher willingness to pay compared to containers that contained no information about Florida. Products that were labeled “product of USA” had no significant difference compared to products that did not claim to be from the USA.
“This experiment allows us to go one step further and look at the relationship between purchase characteristics and how they (consumers) made these decisions,” House says.
Upon further analysis, consumers who are younger, male and shopped for OJ monthly are willing to pay more for OJ with any Florida label. Additionally, awareness of promotions proved to drive demand. Consumers with a pre-existing positive perception of OJ were more willing to pay for OJ associated with Florida.
Overall, the brand image of Florida is strong and has a broad reach from OJ to fresh citrus. Although labeling OJ as “100% Florida” showed the highest willingness to pay in this study, having any Florida content on the container increased willingness to pay.
View the webinar here.
This article was written by Ashley Robinson, multimedia journalist for AgNet Media in Gainesville, Florida.
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