Milk and Yogurt Nutrition Attributes Effects on Household’s Demand in Tabriz City: Application of Random Coefficients Logit Model

The object of this study is to investigate the effects of milk and yogurt nutrition attributes on household’s demand in Tabriz city. The Random Coefficients Logit model was applied and the required data was collected by questionnaire sampling in 10 different blocks of Tabriz in 2019. We considered the price and four attributes of milk and yogurt including amount of sugar, fat, protein, Trans fatty acid and four demographic characters including: age, income, education, child under 6 years old. The results showed that milk and yogurt attributes including fat, protein, and sugar have significantly positive impact on the average utility of people so that the desirability of customers for purchasing the products increase (decreases) commensurately to the increase (decrease) of these properties. So, this indicates that the customers prefer taste over to health considerations. However, the results of this study point out that considering the demographic parameters reduces the influence of the mentioned properties. For instance, the utility of consuming high-fat milks decreases among households with higher education, age, and income and increases in households with children under six years old. In the case of yogurt, the households with higher income and children under six years old obtain more utility while by increasing age of people this utility is going down. Also, level of education and children under six years old and some observation factors such as special illness or diet lead to rising the utility of high protein yogurt consumption whereas it falls by increasing age and income. The own- and cross- price elasticity of the seven brands revealed that the all own price elasticities were negative and less than one and the Pegah has the most elasticity.