Consumer preferences for farmed live carp (Cyprinus carpio) as safe for eating

Consumers' perceptions toward unethical preservations, such as adding hazardous chemicals as a preservative to prevent microbiologic spoilage and extend whole fish's shelf life, are negative. As adding hazardous chemicals to live fish is more challenging, many marketers sell live fish as safe food to restore consumers' confidence, positively affecting consumers' purchase intention. Despite such potential, little research has examined how such selling arrangements affect consumers' seafood choices. This study uses descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis and a rank-ordered logit model to analyze the value consumers in an emerging economy place on food safety and their preference for live fish. We find that consumers are willing to pay a higher price for live over wild fish. Those who believe that wild fish is safe are most likely to prefer live fish and are willing to pay a price premium. When buying such live fish, they tend to shop at supermarkets. Alternatively, low-income consumers prefer farmed fish but not low-educated consumers. A strong belief in food safety regarding wild fish increases the utility of live carp; however, a strong belief in the safety of live fish decreases the utility of farmed fish insignificantly, indicating supply chain bottlenecks of live fish from safe aquaculture. Of the respondents, 44.80 % eat fish several times per week, and 91 % buy fish at least once a month. The findings could be useful for segmenting the market, establishing the potential of a live fish market, and formulating an effective seafood policy.