Consumer preferences for worker and supply chain risk mitigation in the beef supply chain in response to COVID‐19 pandemic

The COVID‐19 pandemic strained the beef supply chain through plant closures and labor shortages. The pandemic highlighted worker safety inadequacies as well as system vulnerabilities to supply chain disruptions. One result has been political and media scrutinization of beef processing concentration as a culprit for these disruptions. Breaking plants up into smaller, more geographically dispersed processing could help mitigate risk from large plant closures but would likely result in higher retail prices because of lost scale economies. Additionally, improving worker safety likely means slower processing even in larger plants, again likely raising retail prices. We use a choice‐based conjoint analysis to examine to whether and to what extent consumers would be willing to pay higher prices to support smaller plant sizes and improved worker safety, among other beef characteristics. Findings of the study suggest that consumers do not care, at least directly, about plant size but are willing to pay to reduce food miles for processed beef (indirectly implying more geographic dispersion). Consumers are also WTP to improve worker safety. Results also show positive willingness to pay for characteristics such as “grass‐fed” which is consistent with other studies. [EconLit Citations: Q13, Q18, C25, C83].