Willingness to pay and attributes of elderly food products on elders’ choices in Chiang Mai

Abstract

In the situation and the concern of entering the elderly society of Thailand and everything for elderly are becoming more important on the global market. Elderly's food product is still a new product in the market and still needs development in every aspect to meet the market needs as much as possible. The purpose of this study was (1) To estimate the willingness to pay for elderly food products of elders in Chiang Mai. (2) To determine the attributes of elderly food products on elders' choices in Chiang Mai. (3) to find the value of the willingness to pay on elderly food products. In this study using a sample of 400 Thai's consumers in Chiang Mai who buy the food for the elderly without chronic diseases. This study proposes the contingent valuation (CV) technique to measure the willingness of individuals to pay a price premium for elderly food products on elders' choices in Chiang Mai. To obtain the mean "willingness to pay" (WTP), a multinomial probit model was applied to provide information about the crucial variables that affect the WTP. The study revealed that variables that better approximates WTP are based on education level and knowledge about elderly's food rather than the usual socioeconomic factors. The mean WTP on the premium price for elderly food products is approximately 18.44 Bath per 1 unit of product. To access the market potential, this study shows that the suitable attributes of elderly food products which is consistent with consumer preferences are composed of nutritious, provide vitamins and minerals to the body and easy to chew and digestion. In addition, elderly food products should be available in any places and convenient for customers to buy.