Announcement

BeefLedger is pleased to receive the results of a survey of Chinese consumers, conducted in late November 2019. The full report can be found here.

The survey and analysis was led by Dr Cao Shoufeng, a Post-doctoral research fellow at Queensland University of Technology.

Dr Cao Shoufeng led the analysis of the survey findings.

Key Findings

The key findings are:

  1. Surveyed consumers believe Australian beef is superior to other offerings.
  2. A label claiming that beef is ‘Australian Made’ is no longer enough.Surveyed consumers are less likely to trust ‘country of origin’ claims found on labels attached to Australian beef in the market place and are sceptical that the beef they buy is really from Australia. (This reflects widespread knowledge of product, packaging and label counterfeiting generally.)
  3. Surveyed consumers most want to see the following information available via blockchain credentialed systems:
    1. Packing and expiry date
    2. Cold chain integrity
    3. Cooking instructions
    4. Age of the cattle slaughtered
  4. Surveyed consumers prefer Australian beef that is portion cut and packed in Australia, as opposed to that which is portion cut and packed in China. Concerns about counterfeiting, substitution and adulteration in domestic processing plants underpin this.
  5. On average, surveyed consumers are willing to pay between 31.57 and 57.31 Yuan more than the reference price for a 150-gram BeefLedger branded Australian cut and packaged Sirloin steak at the same weight – provided the origin has been validated by blockchain technologies.

    BeefLedger consumer-ready product, available to Chinese consumers on our social e-commerce platform Liberty Post.

Limitations and Next Steps

The survey sampled 115 respondents who attended showcase events held in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou. The sample tended to be represented by respondents with higher education levels and commensurately higher incomes. Many were involved in one way or another in the beef (or food) supply chain. Amongst respondents were beef wholesale importers, retail chain representatives, social e-commerce operators, hotel and restaurant owners and managers, wine merchants, chefs, and of course general consumers.

The research provides some solid insights, that will need to be further explored with larger surveys. This is now in train, as the research team plans a follow-up round of surveys to be implemented in the near future.

Aside from expanding the sample, we will also be exploring specific demographic sub-segments in greater detail so as to explore how post COVID19 e-commerce dynamics is affect consumer perspectives on beef supply chain authentication and provenance value issues.

Collaborators

The survey was conducted as part of the Export Smart Contracts Project Co-funded by Food Agility CRC, QUT and BeefLedger. We acknowledge the financial support of our co-funders in making this important piece of research possible.

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