Source: Michael Fielding, MEATINGPLACE, 5/16/1
 
Willingness to pay for all proteins has dropped across the board for Americans in May, particularly for chicken products and steaks, according to Oklahoma State University’s monthly Food Demand Survey (FooDS) issued May 15.

On average, consumers in May are willing to pay just $2.01 per pound for chicken wings – an 11.45 percent drop from a month ago. Though not in the double digits, willingness to pay for chicken breasts dropped 7.56 percent, and steak suffered another hit with a drop of 7.58 percent.

The online survey with a sample size of at least 1,000 individuals indicated that willingness to pay for all meat products (except deli ham) were also lower than one year ago. The least-affected product is the hamburger: In May, consumers are willing to pay $4.07 per pound, down 2.4 percent from April, when they noted they were willing to pay $4.17 per pound.
Willingness to pay for pork chops dropped to $3.51 per pound from $3.76 per pound in April – a 6.65-percent drop, while they also tightened their pocketbooks when buying deli ham, which dropped to $2.29 per pound from $2.42 per pound in April – a 5.37-percent drop.

This month, consumers said they spent about $96.34 on food groceries, up 5.08 percent from April, while $50.15 was spent on food consumed away from home, up 10.05 percent from April.

Consumers anticipate spending less money on food in coming months, even as they expect to see higher meat prices in comparison to one year ago and compared to last month. Consumers said they expect to buy more chicken and less beef and pork in the coming weeks.

Taste, safety and price remained consumers’ most important values when purchasing foods. Consumer values remained similar to those in past months, with a slight decrease in perceived value of taste, safety and environment and an increase in perceived value price.

Consumer challenges remained similar to previous months with a slight increase in the least-challenging issue: findings foods children would eat.

In May, 3.35 percent of participants reported having food poisoning, a 5.9 percent decrease from April.
FooDS is a monthly on-line survey with a sample size of at least 1,000 individuals, weighted to match the US population in terms of age, gender, education and region of residence.

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