Assessing Korean consumers' valuation for domestic, Chinese, and US rice: Importance of country of origin and food miles information

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess Korean consumers' valuation for domestic rice and imported rice from China and the USA. Design/methodology/approach – In order to identify Korean consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for domestic, Chinese, and US rice, the non-hypothetical experimental auction approach (i.e. the random nth price auction) was utilized. Auction participants were randomly assigned to three treatments: no labelling information, country of origin labelling information, and food miles labelling information to analyze the effects of differing labelling information on consumers' valuation. Findings – The results suggest that Korean consumers have a positive perception of and preference for domestic rice, particularly when country of origin information is provided. However, food miles information alone may not help consumers to distinguish between domestic and Chinese rice. Originality/value – The marketing of imported rice will increase since Korea will be opening its rice market under tariffication after 2015. Therefore, it is necessary for Korea and other exporting countries to identify the feasibility of marketing both domestic and imported rice, and also to investigate which rice from specific countries Korean consumers prefer. Therefore, the authors conducted the random nth price auction using real rice products and cash in transactions.