Food safety certification in urban food markets: the willingness to pay for safer meat in Peru

This paper estimates consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for meat certified to be safe for human consumption in Peru. Citizens in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are increasingly concerned about the safety of food they consume. Across LMICs, urban markets remain the most important source of fresh and nutritious produce and therefore policymakers need to ensure food safety in urban markets. Much focus has been put on providing producers and supply chain actors with economic incentives to improve food safety. However, such effort has had limited effect without addressing the overall market and food safety governance. In this paper, based on an innovative policy experience from Peru, we explore if and how much consumers are willing to pay for meat sold at market stalls that are certified to provide safe meat. Peru has employed a series of economic packages to incentivise market vendors to improve their practices, and in turn increase their revenue. Our analysis based on a consumer survey across three cities in Peru reveal that consumers are willing to pay 7.1%, 5.8% and 5.3% of the average retail prices of chicken, pork and beef, respectively. This amounts to an average of about 216USD/month of extra revenue for vendors.