FISHERIES RESEARCH INSTITUTE,MOA,TAIWAN

It is necessary to adopt a Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) system to provide traceability in the Taiwanese aquaculture industry to meet the international needs of food safety. Since production costs will increase regardless of which system is adopted, only when consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for authenticated products reaches sufficiently enough prices will producers be provided with the incentive to apply an authentication system to aquaculture production. The purpose of this study was to investigate how much money consumers are willing to pay for authenticated aquaculture products. The contingent valuation method and survival analysis were applied in this research. The results suggested that a log-normal distribution is the best approach to approximate the distribution of consumers’ WTP. Also, the study showed that, on average, consumers are willing to pay NT$11.05/kg more for authenticated (safe) products.