Pet ownership, veterinary use, and beliefs regarding veterinary care were elicited through the use of a nationally representative survey of 997 U.S. residents. Fifty-one percent of respondents have or had a dog in the past five years and 37% have or had a cat in the past five years. Over ninety percent of cat and dog owners had visited a veterinarian at any time, but only about 40% visited a veterinarian annually. With the rise of options in veterinary medicine, including low-cost options for vaccines and spay/neuter, further study and analysis of pet-owners use of veterinary care is warranted. Fifty-four percent of dog owners and 40% of cat owners who went to a low-cost spay/neuter clinic also went to a veterinarian/clinic/practice. This finding suggests that pet-owners who use low-cost options do so in a manner that supplements rather than replaces traditional veterinary care. Logit models were employed to evaluate the relationship between dog and cat owner demographics and visiting a veterinarian. The probability of visiting a veterinarian increased with age and income for dog owners.

Summary: Households that frequently purchased food for children had different dairy buying behavior compared with other households. Households with children reported buying larger quantities of fluid milk and yogurt, and their chosen fluid milk had a higher fat content. Meat, egg, and milk product package labeling information of interest to the highest percentage of households was price, followed by expiration date and nutritional information.

Purpose: This article quantifies public sentiment for dairy products using online media and investigates potential relationships between online media, both volume and sentiment, and future prices of Class III milk.Design/methodology/approach: Netbase, an online media listening platform, was used to quantify US generated online media sentiment and number of mentions regarding dairy products. Granger-causality tests and Impulse Response Functions (IRFs) were used to study relationships between online media derived data and dairy futures prices.Findings: Milk and cheese have more mentions in online media than yogurt and ice cream. Online media net sentiment around milk was the lowest of the dairy products studied. Granger-causality tests showed that Class III milk price Granger-causes net sentiment of dairy as a whole and of fluid milk. Price additionally Granger-causes mentions of milk, ice cream and yogurt. Notably, milk and ice cream mentions Granger-cause the Class III milk price. IRF's reveals that increases in mentions have a positive, albeit small, effect on the Class III milk price that is statistically significant for ice cream, but not for milk. IRF's directionality of the relationship from price to online media derived data was mixed.Originality/value: This is the first time that relationships between online media -volume and sentiment- and futures prices of an agricultural commodity are researched. Exploration of futures markets alongside online media advances the use of online media to glean insights in financial, along with food and agricultural markets.

The location of production and processing has had an increasingly prominent role in discussions regarding food systems today. Acknowledging the increasing importance, we study consumer preferences for and perception of local products with a particular focus on how willingness to pay (WTP) for local origin indication differs across products, types of designations, and rurality of the individual's geographic location. Using data collected through an online survey, we focused on Indiana residents’ preferences for sweet corn and Barbecue (BBQ) sauce with the sample representing both rural and urban consumers across all twelve economic growth regions in the state. Results reveal significant premiums for local products, with variations in WTP for certain local indications across rural and urban respondents. We also find that the marketing channel (farmer's market, direct from producer, or retail/grocery store) significantly influences respondents’ WTP for the two products, with results varying across the two products.

Aged-beef has historically been available in high-end establishments, but investigation into consumer preferences for aging is increasingly important as it has become more readily available. Consumer perceptions of and willingness-to-pay (WTP) for aged-beef under two methods dry-aging and wet-aging, were studied in a representative sample of n = 1,275 US residents alongside USDA quality grades. In general, US residents are not knowledgeable regarding aged-beef but have a positive direct-stated perception of the practice. Respondents self-reported familiarity with USDA grades Prime and Choice and perceived them as superior beef attributes. Half of respondents were randomly assigned to receive a low information treatment about beef aging, while the other half saw a high information treatment with additional information about beef aging. A likelihood ratio test indicated that the two information groups could not be pooled for analysis, and a two-class latent class model was estimated for both the low information and high information treatments. Respondents in class 1, in both information treatments, had stronger preferences for beef and were more receptive of beef aging, with the exception of wet-aged beef in the low information treatment, which they were not willing to pay a premium for. The second latent class, which is probabilistically smaller, had negative WTP estimates for both aging methods under both information treatments provided. Additional information regarding beef aging was found to have a positive impact on mean WTP for dry-aged beef in latent class 2. All models revealed positive mean WTP point estimates which ordinally behaved as expected with USDA Prime commanding the highest premium and Select the least.