Will consumers pay more for safe food?

• Position: YOUR LIFE

Government regulators could assess the value of improving food safety more realistically if they consider the fact that consumers typically want to avoid getting sick--even if it means having to pay a little extra.

In the world of food regulation, cost-benefit analysis is a primary tool for determining the societal benefits of mandating more stringent--and expensive--processing practices. In most cases, regulators determine a dollar value associated with pursuing new rules by estimating how many illnesses and deaths the safer processing would prevent. Yet, a study from the University of Maine, Orono, proposes a new way to approach these estimates. Instead of focusing on reducing food-borne illnesses and deaths associated with a specific pathogen, why not ask consumers how valuable food-safety improvements are to them? The researchers conducted such a national survey that they designed with the help of an economic model that predicts consumer behavior.

The results suggest that Americans would be willing to pay about a dollar per person per year, or an estimated $305,000,000 in the aggregate, for a 10% reduction in the likelihood that hamburger they buy in the supermarket is contaminated by E. coli, indicates Mario Teisl, professor of economics. By comparison, a Department of Agriculture analysis estimates the value of eradicating a specific type of E. coli contamination from all food sources would result in a benefit valued at $446,000,000.

The problem with the Federal estimate, Teisl explains, is that the total eradication of the most common causes of food-borne illness virtually is impossible because of the exorbitant cost required to achieve such a...