Evaluating trends of low sodium content in food: The willingness to pay for salt-reduced bread, a case study

Abstract

igh salt intake is an important health risk since its consumption is often strongly related to negative health effects. In light of this, and given the social and health costs linked to overconsumption of salt, this paper highlights the main factors related to the demand for foods that have a low sodium content. Our study aims to analyse in depth the preferences and attitudes of consumers towards food low in salt as well as assessing for the first time the willingness to pay (WTP) in order to determine whether consumers place a high value on sliced salt-reduced bread. The results show a fairly limited WTP for bread with a low sodium content, with the relevant values being calculated at 20% over the price of normal bread. This indica tes that consumers are positively interested in this kind of product but their willingness to pay more is rather limited.The findings of this study also support an argument for the fi rst time of the role played by the physical activity and physical characteristics of the sampled consumers, showing the importance of the body mass index in significantly influencing the individual WTP for low-salt bread.