An Economic Analysis of Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Consumption: Implications for Overweight and Obesity among Higher- and Lower-Income Consumers

are positive and statistically significant for four sub-categories of fruit (bananas, fresh-cut,
melons and soft), suggesting that current purchases are positively influenced by purchases during
the previous week. For berries and grapes, lagged quantities are negative and statistically
significant, suggesting an inverse relationship between current and past purchases.

With respect to own-price elasticities for sub-categories of fruit, all but one, fresh-cut
fruit, is negative and statistically significant. Moreover, when demand elasticies for higher- and
lower-income shoppers are compared for these remaining seven sub-categories, statistically
significant differences are shown for all but one, berries. Specifically, relative differences in
own-price elasticities for citrus are -2.12 versus -1.41 for lower- and higher-income shoppers
respectively. Comparing this price elasticity difference with differences in prices paid as shown
in Table 2 and Graph 5, this suggests that lower-income shoppers are quite sensitive to price
changes for citrus. Yet, as a percentage of total fruit consumption, lower-income shoppers are
shown to purchase a higher percent than higher-income shoppers (15.1% versus 12.6%). In
essence, despite their sensitivity to price changes, lower-income shoppers find a way to add large
amounts of citrus to their diets.

Differences in own-price elasticities for other fruit consumed by higher- and lower-
income shoppers are not as great as that shown for citrus. For apples, the difference is -1.81
versus -1.54. This greater price sensitivity led lower-income shoppers to pay a lower price per
pound for apples ($1.01 versus $1.18). Yet, as a share of both total produce consumption and
total fruit consumption, lower-income shoppers are shown to lag far behind higher-income
shoppers (Graphs 1 and 3). Of course, even more dramatic differences are shown for berries.
Much of this difference is undoubtedly due to the high price of berries. Indeed berries are shown
to be the highest-priced of all the sub-categories of fruit (Table 2 and Graph 5). Yet, the

<<   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   >>

More intriguing information