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The Demand for Disaggregated Food-Away-from-Home and Food-at-Home Products in the United States

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Listed author(s):
  • Okrent, Abigail M.
  • Alston, Julian M.

Abstract

Food away from home (FAFH) comprises nearly half of all U.S. consumer food expenditures. Hence, policies designed to influence nutritional outcomes would be incomplete if they did not address the role of FAFH. However, because of data limitations, most studies of the response of food demand to policy changes have ignored the role of FAFH, and those studies that have included FAFH have treated it as a single good. We, therefore, estimate demand for 43 disaggregated FAFH and food-at-home (FAH) products, using a 2-stage budgeting framework. We find that the demands for disaggregated FAFH products differ in price responsiveness and tend to be more sensitive to changes in food spending patterns than FAH products. Many foods are found to have statistically significant substitution and complementary relationships within and among food groups. Predicted changes in quantities based on our estimates that include all goods and services and those estimates that include only a subset of foods differ substantially, implying that evaluations of health and nutrition policy based on elasticities of demand for only a subset of goods may be misleading.

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File URL: http://purl.umn.edu/132469
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Paper provided by United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service in its series Economic Research Report with number 132469.

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Date of creation: Aug 2012
Handle: RePEc:ags:uersrr:132469
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Keywords: Food demand; food away from home (FAFH); demand systems; elasticities.; Agricultural and Food Policy; Demand and Price Analysis; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety;

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Cited by:

  1. Okrent, Abigail & Kumcu, Aylin, 2014. "What’s Cooking? Demand for Convenience Foods in the United States," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 170541, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
  2. Shewmake, Sharon & Okrent, Abigail & Thabrew, Lanka & Vandenbergh, Michael, 2015. "Predicting consumer demand responses to carbon labels," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 168-180.
  3. Kumcu, Aylin & Okrent, Abigail M ., 2014. "Methodology for the Quarterly Food- Away-from - Home Prices Data," Technical Bulletins 184292, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
  4. Amoakon, Joel & Ejimakor, Godfrey & Hardy, Deric, 2016. "Exploring the Food Expenditure Patterns of College Students," 2016 Annual Meeting, February 6-9, 2016, San Antonio, Texas 230666, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
  5. Pruitt, J. Ross & Holcomb, Rodney B., 2015. "Impacts on Food Safety Recalls and Consumer Information on Restaurant Performance," 2015 Annual Meeting, January 31-February 3, 2015, Atlanta, Georgia 196720, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
  6. Weatherspoon, Dave D. & Kuhns, Annemarie & Leschewski, Andrea & Dickens, Chris, 2015. "The Relationship between Supermarket Concentration and the Shopping Habits of the Urban Poor: a Prepared Foods Example," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205691, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association;Western Agricultural Economics Association.

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