Comparison of Food Values for Consumers’ Preferences on Imported Fruits and Vegetables within Japan, Taiwan, and Indonesia

Abstract International agricultural trade in fruits and vegetables has received much attention as an effective method to create a sustainable agriculture industry for a country. This study focuses on consumers’ perceptions of food values toward imported fruits and vegetables in Japan, Taiwan, and Indonesia by using the Best-Worst Scaling method. Seven food values were examined in this study: labeling product origin, food safety certification, high quality appearance, domestic rarity, price, how the product was grown, and freshness. An online survey was conducted and 1,350 total valid respondents were collected (500 Japanese, 333 Taiwanese, and 517 Indonesian). The Latent Class Multinomial Logit model was used to analyze consumers for each country. Results revealed that food safety certification and freshness were found as the most important and second most important food values for the majority group of consumers in each of these three countries, respectively. However, the remainder of food values do not have the same importance for each country. The study should help governments and international marketers enhance their agricultural trade policies and marketing strategies for these targeted markets.