How the Income Elasticity of Meat Consumption differs between social groups? A case of the UK and the Czech Republic

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to show different consumer behaviour between ten different income levels (deciles) and different countries and to examine the elasticity distance between income deciles in the UK (a high-income country) and the Czech Republic (a low-income country) within the context of meat consumption. The official statistic services provided data in the Czech Republic (Czech Statistical Office, 2020) and the UK (Office for National Statistics, 2020). Data on the Czech Republic come from the household budget surveys (HBS). In contrast, corresponding data on UK consumers was drawn from the Living Costs and Food survey, which succeeded the National food survey and household expenditure survey. Both sets of data were set according to households’ structure from the EU-SILC Survey (national module of the European Union – Statistics on Income and Living Conditions). To estimate the income elasticity of meat in the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom in different consumer income groups, a time series cointegration analysis was applied to analyse the annual data for 2000-2017. The Törnquist equation and the difference between income elasticity in monetary and natural expression show saturation and preference of high quality meat in the higher-income consumers in the UK than the same groups in the Czech Republic and overall increasing demand for quality in other income groups. The results support the theory of nutrition transitions. The value of the research is that it would enable the exploration of the potential impact and nature of fiscal interventions for improving diets whilst enabling food producers to forecast meat consumption within the different customer segments.