Source: PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY submitted to
FOOD ECONOMICS, BEHAVIOR, AND HEALTH
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
REVISED
Funding Source
HATCH
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1019915
Grant No.
(N/A)
Project No.
PEN04709
Proposal No.
(N/A)
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Program Code
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Jul 1, 2019
Project End Date
Jun 30, 2024
Grant Year
(N/A)
Project Director
Jaenicke, ED, C.
Recipient Organization
PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY
208 MUELLER LABORATORY
UNIVERSITY PARK,PA 16802
Performing Department
Agri Economics, Sociology & Education
Non Technical Summary
This project will use two types of state-of-art, economic analyses to investigate consumers food decisions, their link towards individual health and dietary quality, and the associated policy implication. One type of analysis uses micro-level market data to estimate structural models derived from consumers' utility maximization problems or reduced-form models that examine how an important factor under investigation exogenously varies while controlling for other factors. A second type records and analyzes outcomes from carefully designed economic experiments conducted either in lab, field, or survey settings. Both types of analyses will allow us to investigate the impact of both micro-level factors (such as changing product attributes) and macro-level factors (such as the changing food retailing environment) on consumers' food choices and health. Food and health policies are highly relevant for both types of analysis and policy analysis will be a common theme throughout all phases of the project.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
0%
Applied
100%
Developmental
0%
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
6035010301025%
6036010301025%
6075010301025%
6076010301025%
Knowledge Area
603 - Market Economics; 607 - Consumer Economics;

Subject Of Investigation
6010 - Individuals; 5010 - Food;

Field Of Science
3010 - Economics;
Goals / Objectives
1. Model food decisions about food and health, and investigate how "micro factors" (price, product attributes, etc.) affect choices using multiple types of data. a. Market level data analysis (e.g., Homescan, IRI, FoodAPS, etc.). b. Experimental or survey data analysis.2. Investigate how "macro factors" factors affect consumers' food decisions. a. How does the food environment (e.g., food deserts, food swamps, etc.) affect food choices? b. How do changing marketing environments and technologies (such as online shopping or new store formats) affect food decisions? c. How do increased information availability, health concerns, or marketing campaigns affect food decisions?3. Investigate the policy implications of both micro and macro factors' influence on consumers' choices and health.
Project Methods
1.a. Investigating food and health choices using market data.The first part of the project involves modeling consumer food demand or food purchase behavior and applying these models to actual purchase data. A key feature may be incorporating "extra" information such as health-related product attributes, product-labeling information, or individual health information into the model and estimation. Decision models to be estimated will include "structural" models that are fully consistent with utility-maximization models and "reduced-form" models that isolate a single decision made by two types of households, i.e., a treated group who have been exposed to a new policy and a control group who have not been exposed to the new policy. Once estimated, both types of models can shed light on how individuals are making food purchase decisions and whether or not a new policy will be affected.This first part of the project will require food-purchase datasets, including Nielsen's Homescan data and Scantrack data, IRI's consumer panel and market-level data, IRI's MedProfiler health data, and USDA's FoodAPS data. The study team has access to Homescan data via an institutional subscription held by Penn State's Library System. Access to IRI data is available on a project-by-project basis via collaborative agreements with USDA. (Fan)1.b Investigating food choices in an experimental settingThis portion of the proposed project focuses on primary data collection through economic experiments conducted in lab settings, in the field, or in surveys. The strength of these analyses is that the study team has control over the experimental design, thus allowing us to isolate one or more decision factors while holding constant all other confounding factors. Experimental design is thus is a key aspect of this research.While Penn State's Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education does not have an experimental lab, it can make use of two existing labs: one is the Laboratory for Economics, Management, and Auctions (LEMA) in the Smeal College of Business, and the other is the Sensory Evaluation Center in the Department of Food Science. The study team has connections to both labs but has not yet utilized either lab. (Liu, Vecchi, Fan)2.a Investigating the impact of the food environment on food-purchasing behaviorThis portion of the project will start with Nielsen, IRI, or FoodAPS purchase data but add in additional geographic information on consumers' food retail environment or other geo-specific data. Nielsen's TDLinx (available via collaborative agreement with USDA) is one such dataset that provides a directory of food retailers, a number of business attributes, and a geo-location of the business. Other sources of geographic data may come from collaborations with geographers in Penn State's Population Research Institution or own data collection from web scraping.Because the food geography is formed by many of the same factors that govern consumer food choice, endogeneity of choice behavior and proper identification of causal influences are chief concerns. The proposed project will employ three general solutions to these concerns: (i) the estimation of structural models that simultaneously account for all endogenous choices, (ii) the use of instrumental variables to mitigate the econometric problems associated with endogeneity, and (iii) the use of quasi-experiments that exogenously isolate separate population subsamples thus identifying the food environment as a causal factor. (Fan)2.b Investigating market changes and new technologies on food-purchasing behaviorTwo of the most recent and important changes to food retailing have been the emergence of nontraditional food retailers (such as Dollar Stores, Drug Stores, and Mass Merchandizers) and online shopping vehicles (such as Amazon Fresh and dot-com version of traditional retailers). The Nielsen and IRI food-purchase data long noted the particular retail channel associated with food purchase, and they have also begun to identify online shopping as well. When these data sources fail, it is also possible to collect data from online shopping Web sites using automated "scaping" programs. Thus, these new factors (e.g., online shopping) can soon be incorporated into the studies similar to those described in approaches (1.a) and (1.b). For example, an important question to pose to food-purchase data, similar in vain to those in (1.a), is whether purchases transacted online are healthier than those transacted inside a brick-and-mortar store. And a good follow-up, similar in vain to projects in (1.b), would be to use an experiment to determine why shopping behavior differs between online and brick-and-mortar transactions. (Jaenicke, Liu, Vecchi)2.c Investigating increased information availability, health concerns, or marketing campaigns on food-purchasing decisions.Just as the retail environment is changing, so are information availability and health concerns. Consumers are forming their attitudes towards health from a variety of sources, including social media. This portion of the project investigates how food behavior changes as greater informational changes are occurring in the marketplace around us. Measuring these changes in attitudes and information availability is the main challenge associated with this task. However, data from a number of social media sources (such as Twitter) are increasingly available and have been used in recent empirical work. Here again, this new type of data will be collected from Twitter and related social media sites and incorporated into consumer studies similar to (1.a) and perhaps (1.b). (Fan)3. Investigating the policy implications of both micro and macro factors' influence on consumers' choices and health.As noted above, one of the most striking aspects of the general issue of food, dietary quality, and health is the generally weak impact that food and health-based policies have on improving diets and health disparities in many subpopulations. These general results do not mean that all polices are useless; however, it might mean that policies need to be better tailored or to better account for behavioral responses. For example, Wang (2015) found that soda taxes may have a particularly weak impact on consumption because soda companies often offer temporary price reductions and consumers respond by stockpiling during periods of low price. The models and analyses to be undertaken in tasks 1.a, 1.b, 2.a, 2.b, and 2.c are specifically intended to acknowledge and account for a wide range of consumer reactions and behavior. Thus, as much as possible, all portions this proposed work will feature policy analysis that accounts for a wide intended and unintended behavioral reactions to policies that may change one or more of the micro and macro factors or other structural changes in the retail food environment. (Jaenicke, Liu, Vecchi, Fan)

Progress 10/01/19 to 09/30/20

Outputs
Target Audience:This project has three target audiences: The first type is our academic peers in applied economics, public health, and perhaps nutrition and food science. The second type is food, health, and agricultural policy makers. The third type is industry stakeholders including members of the food retailing and food manufacturing industries. Changes/Problems:Change: The study team added two members in 2020: new assistant professors Martina Vecchi and Linlin Fan. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Two PhD doctoral disserations and one MS thesis were completed with this research project. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The project team members are active participants in professional associations and havepresented working papers at annual research conferences. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period, the study team expects to propose a new project that would investigate the link between convenience foods, diet quality, health, and human behavior. This project will be the first to integrate scanner-data analysis with economic experiments.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? This project started in July 2019, and the study team's accomplishments for July-September 2019 period can be framed within the context of the project's three main goals (and sub-goals): Goal 1: Findings in the Liu et al. Agricultural Economics paper suggests that consumers have a smaller mean utility from local milk brands compared to private label brands, and the non-price obstacles such as limited packaging choices and limited accessibility in retail outlets could be one of the contributing factors. In addition to these results, the paper finds that locally branded milk still faces significant demand challenges. Findings in the Katz, Campbell, and Liu Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics paper reveals that consumers prefer local to nonlocal, but some consumers will pay a higher premium for logo-labeled produce compared with text-labeled produce. Additionally, the study finds evidence that a local logo tends to attract attention quicker and hold attention longer compared with a text label. The organic text label was preferred by some consumers compared with the USDA certified organic logo, eventhough consumers looked at the logo longer and more often. Findings cited in the Fan et. al. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics papersuggest that Charitable Food Assistance (CFA) programs such as food pantries provide a substantial portion of the diets of their clients and, in particular, for foods that constitute components of healthy diets. For the proportion of CFA clients who received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), this study finds evidence that CFA clients relied more on CFAs when their SNAP benefits were likely to run low. In Feng et. al. (2020), we find that SNAP insignificantly affectdietary quality after addressing selection bias into the SNAP program. In a working paper titled "Rewarding behavior with a sweet food strengthens its valuation,"we find that using a food as a reward increases its valuation among primary school children. The common practice of rewarding children with palatable foods could be a plausible contributing factor to obesity and might therefore be ill advised. Findings in Yu and Jaenicke (2020) show that average food waste among U.S. households is around 31 percent, and that the level of food waste increases in households with higher-incomes, small numbers, and healthier diets. Findings in Scharadin and Jaenicke (2020) show the importance that household time constraints have on diet quality. For example, increased time devoted to secondary childcare (i.e., time spenttending to children while also conducting a primary activity) is associated with lower diet quality as measured by the Healthy Eating Index. Goal 2: More findings from the Liu et al. Agricultural Economics paper suggestthat consumers examine the effectiveness of different marketing strategies in improving local milk sales and find that price cutting stimulates the demand for local brand milk. One-gallon container offerings and expanding the number of retail stores that carry locally branded milk can also boost consumers demand for local brand milk. However, the effect of expanding retail stores is less efficient than offering one-gallon containers. These findings suggest that even though the most obvious problem faced by local brand milk brands are prices that are much higher than private label prices, direct price cuts do not solve the issue as efficiently as expected. More from the Katz, Campbell, and Liu Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics paper compared the effectiveness of different marketing practice in attracting consumer attentions: a local logo tends to attract attention quicker and hold attention longer compared with a text label. In Fan (2020), I find that price is the most important store attribute when consumers decide where to shop for groceries. When a low-cost grocery store comes to food deserts, food desertresidents benefit more than non-food desertresidents. Although total social welfare would increase by $219,810 per county per year, grocery stores would find it unprofitable to operate in most severe food deserts. In a working paper titled, "Stress and Food Preferences: A Lab Experiment with Low-SES Mothers", we investigate whether short-term everyday stressors lead to unhealthier food shopping and immediate food consumption choices. We do not find a significant effect of mild stress on the nutritional content of planned food consumption, suggesting there are no sizable spillover effects of mothers' stress on the household's food consumption at home. A study titled "Maternal Stress During Pregnancy and Children's Diet - Evidence from a low SES population" finds that maternal stress during pregnancy significantly predicts children's food and taste preferences as well as their diet, even after controlling for maternal diet, current maternal stress and demographics of child and mother. Higher average stress during pregnancy is linked with food preferences and a diet that wassignificantly less healthy, and with weaker preferences for sour and bitter foods. This relationship persists through childhood, suggesting that maternal stress is a main determinant of children's food preferences and diet. Goal 3: The study "Groups and Socially Responsible Production: An Experiment with Farmers" finds that the number of subjects sharing the profits influences the social responsibility of choices. The higher the number of subjects sharing the profits, the fewer socially responsible choices are taken. More from the Fan et. al. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics paper:Two policy implications are emphasized from the results. First, this paper demonstrates that CFAs play a critical role in supporting the diets of households in need, both in terms of quality and quantity. As such, the government should continue to support food banks through The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), through favorable tax treatment of donations to food banks, and by ensuring regulatory frameworks do not inhibit the ability of food banks to successfully serve vulnerable households. Second, this paper suggests that CFA usage increases at the same time SNAP usage falls. One possible response to this is to increase SNAP benefits which may allow for longer time periods of using SNAP benefits. Along with helping to improve the well-being of vulnerable households, this would also aid food banks to free up more food for other households in need. In addition, only 45% of CFA clients report receiving SNAP. Thus, CFAs are encouraged to connect clients with other public assistance and community-based programs that can support CFA clients beyond emergency food needs. Thomas et. al. (2020) analyzes the effects of Vermont Act 120 that requires mandatory Genetically Engineered (GE) labeling on the grocery store sales of non-GMO, organic, and GE-labeled products. We find that during the implementation period, sales of non-GMO and organic labeled products increased, and the sales of GE-labeled products decreased. The sales trend reverted after the law was repealed but not quite to the baseline levels for organic and GE-labeled products. More from Fan (2020): given that low-cost grocery stores would need constant subsidies to keep operating in food deserts, current policy proposal of one-time entry subsidy may not be effective. In Yu and Jaenicke (2020), results show that sell-by dates do play an important role infood waste: that is, a 2012 policy change in New York City that extended the sell-by date for milk led to more than a 10 percent reduction of wasted milk.

Publications

  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2020 Citation: Jaenicke, E.C. Household-level Food Waste: Estimation, Behavioral Insights, and Next Steps, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, Auburn University, Feb. 24, 2020
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Vecchi, M. Groups and Socially Responsible Production: An Experiment with Farmers. Seminar at the Smeal College of Business, The Pennsylvania State University, October 2019
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2020 Citation: Vecchi, M. Groups and Socially Responsible Production: An Experiment with Farmers. Seminar in the Department of Hospitality Management, The Pennsylvania State University, February 2020
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2020 Citation: Feng, J., L. Fan and T. Jaenicke. The Impact of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program on Dietary Quality 2020 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting, August, 2020.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2020 Citation: Feng, J., L. Fan and T. Jaenicke. Food Assistance Programs and Healthfulness of Food Choices 2020 Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association Annual Meeting, June, 2020.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2020 Citation: Liu, Y. and P. Zhou Food Environment, Diet Quality and Online Grocery Shopping. 2020 Annual Meeting of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, August, 2020
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2020 Citation: Liu, Y. and P. Zhou Food Environment, Diet Quality and Online Grocery Shopping. Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association Annual Meeting, June 2020
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2020 Citation: Thomas, B., L. Fan and A. Stevens. Consumer Purchasing Response to Genetically Engineered Labeling 2020 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting, August, 2020.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Arora, R., D. Brent, and E.C. Jaenicke. 2020. Is India Ready for Alt-Meat? Preferences and Willingness to Pay for Meat Alternatives in India. Sustainability. 12(11): 4377. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12114377
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Campbell, Benjamin, Liu, Yizao, and Katz, Michael. (2019). Local and Organic Preference: Logo versus Text. Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics. 51(2), 328-347.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2020 Citation: Fan, L., C. Gundersen, K. Baylis and M. Saksena. 2020. The Use of Charitable Food Assistance Program by Low-Income Households in the U.S. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Forthcoming
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2020 Citation: Liu, Yizao, Rabinowitz, Adam, Chen, Xuan., & Campbell, Benjamin. (2020) Demand, Challenges and Marketing Strategies in the Promotion of Local Foods: The Case of Fluid Milk. Forthcoming, Agricultural Economics.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2020 Citation: Scharadin, B. and E.C. Jaenicke. 2020. Time Spent on Childcare and the Household Eating Index. Review of the Economics of the Household. Forthcoming.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2020 Citation: Yu, Y., and E.C, Jaenicke. 2020. The Effect of Sell-by Dates on Purchase Volume and Food Waste. Food Policy, forthcoming. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2020.101879.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2020 Citation: Fan, L. The Welfare Impact of Subsidizing Grocery Stores into Food Deserts. Seminar at Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics, Rutgers University, March, 2020
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2020 Citation: Vecchi, M. Groups and Socially Responsible Production: An Experiment with Farmers 2020 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting, August 2020.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2020 Citation: Vecchi, M. Stress and Food Preferences: A Lab Experiment with Low-SES Mothers 2020 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting, Track Session, August 2020.
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Other Year Published: 2020 Citation: Xuan Chen, Ph.D. 2020. Three Essays on Consumer Demand, Health, and Retail Competition. (Chair: Yizao Liu)
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Other Year Published: 2020 Citation: Yang Yu, Ph.D. 2020. Three Essays on Food Waste and Consumer Demand Analysis. (Chair: Edward Jaenicke; Committee: Yizao Liu)
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Other Year Published: 2020 Citation: Betty Thomas, M.S., 2020. Consumer Purchasing Response to Genetically Engineered Labeling (Co-chair: Linlin Fan)


Progress 07/01/19 to 09/30/19

Outputs
Target Audience:This project has three target audiences: The first type is our academic peers in applied economics, public health, and perhaps nutrition and food science. The second type is food, health, and agricultural policy makers. The third type is industry stakeholders including members of the food retailing and food manufacturing industries. Changes/Problems:The study team expects to add two members: new assistant professors Martina Vecchi and Linlin Fan. Once these new researchers are added, the entire study team may revisit and possibly revise or amend that study objectives. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Nothing Reported How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period, the study team expects to begin a new modeling effort that will allow us to investigate whether certain households (such as those where obesity is present) are behaving as if they are addicted to specific foods. The study team also expects to begin incorporating experimental methods under Goal 1.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Goal 1: Findings cited in the Yu and Jaenicke American Journal of Agricultural Economics paper (listed above) explain how much food is wasted by each of nearly 5,000 households in the study group and how food waste levels related to household characteristics. We find that the average household wastes about 31% of the food it acquires, and that households with higher incomes and fewer members waste more. Goal 2: During the three months of this reporting period, we have focused our efforts on Goals 1 and 3. Goal 3: More from the Yu and Jaenicke American Journal of Agricultural Economics paper (listed above): At least two important policy implications emerge from the food-waste estimations conducted in this stud: First, we find that households with healthier diets waste more food, most likely due to increased purchases of perishable fruits and vegetables. Thus, nutrition policies aimed increasing fruit and vegetable consumptions may have unexpected and unwelcome impacts on food waste. Second, we find that participants in SNAP and WIC programs waste less food. Thus, these food-assistance programs have outcomes in line with lower food waste.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2019 Citation: Yu, Y., and E.C, Jaenicke. 2019. Estimating Food Waste as Household Production Inefficiency. American Journal of Agricultural Economics. Forthcoming. (For an earlier version, see this working paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3257535)
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Yu, U., and E.C. Jaenicke. Food Waste and the Consistent Estimation of Consumer Demand. Selected poster at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, Atlanta, Georgia, July 21-23, 2019.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Chen, X.; Y. Liu, P. Zhou, Product Innovation in Beverage Market and the Demand for Better for You Drinks. 2019 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting, July, 2019
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Rabinowitz, A., Y. Liu, G. Melo, and M. Ver Ploeg. Fill-in Purchase Decisions of SNAP/WIC Households. 2019 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting, July, 2019.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Liu, Y., R. Cleary, and A. Carlson. Distributional Impact of Health Information on Diet Quality 2019 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting, July, 2019.
  • Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Other Year Published: 2019 Citation: Zefeng (Billy) Dong, Ph.D., 2019. Three Essays on Consumer Demand, Health, and Food Environment. (Co-Chairs: Edward Jaenicke with Yizao Liu)