Capturing premiums for authentic Māori agrifood products: Consumer willingness to pay and authentication processes

This report examines the types of premiums that Māori agrifood producers can get for their products through indigenous branding and environmental credentials generated by the Kaitiaki Intelligence Platform.

This report brings together the current literature identifying the credence attributes of Māori products and through scoping the willingness-to-pay (WTP) literature, identifies the premiums that Māori producers might expect in market for their attributes.

The first section of this report examines the history and background to the field of market research concerning credence attributes. It shows how food products contain multiple credence attributes and traces changes in consumer preferences over time. It shows a growing interest in the types of attributes that indigenous food producers imbue in their products.

The second section explores literature concerning the types of credence attributes that Māori agrifood products contain, and how these attributes might be communicated to Western consumers.

The third section continues literature analysis looking at WTP studies, which provide some indication of premiums Māori food producers might receive for their products in market – should they communicate key attributes. Furthermore, it explores the types of mechanisms and verification systems required to assure consumers that the products they are purchasing contain the attributes being claimed.