Local foods in a university setting: Price consciousness, product involvement, price/quality inference and consumer's willingness-to-pay

The current study looks at the relationship between price consciousness, product involvement, price/quality inference, and consumer's willingness-to-pay related to local foods in a university foodservice environment. The study develops a model that looks at the above relationships as well as the potential moderating factor of perceived product information to determine what role they play in the willingness-to-pay for locally grown products. A survey of 352 students at a large, southeastern U.S. university foodservice operation asked about the role of the above factors in choosing local foods. The study found there were significant relationships between product involvement, price consciousness, and price/quality inference on willingness-to-pay, although perceived product information did not moderate the relationships. Ensuring that customers have sufficient information regarding local products and increasing emotional interest in the local products specifically will help to increase willingness-to-pay for those products. Implications for academics and university foodservice practitioners are discussed.