Valuation of dry and wet aged beef by U.S. consumers

Aged-beef has historically been available in high-end establishments, but investigation into consumer preferences for aging is increasingly important as it has become more readily available. Consumer perceptions of and willingness-to-pay (WTP) for aged-beef under two methods dry-aging and wet-aging, were studied in a representative sample of n = 1,275 US residents alongside USDA quality grades. In general, US residents are not knowledgeable regarding aged-beef but have a positive direct-stated perception of the practice. Respondents self-reported familiarity with USDA grades Prime and Choice and perceived them as superior beef attributes. Half of respondents were randomly assigned to receive a low information treatment about beef aging, while the other half saw a high information treatment with additional information about beef aging. A likelihood ratio test indicated that the two information groups could not be pooled for analysis, and a two-class latent class model was estimated for both the low information and high information treatments. Respondents in class 1, in both information treatments, had stronger preferences for beef and were more receptive of beef aging, with the exception of wet-aged beef in the low information treatment, which they were not willing to pay a premium for. The second latent class, which is probabilistically smaller, had negative WTP estimates for both aging methods under both information treatments provided. Additional information regarding beef aging was found to have a positive impact on mean WTP for dry-aged beef in latent class 2. All models revealed positive mean WTP point estimates which ordinally behaved as expected with USDA Prime commanding the highest premium and Select the least.