Meat Slaughter and Processing Plants’ Traceability Levels Evidence From Iowa

Ti

Variable

Traceability level

Description

Categorical variable which takes 1 for low level, 2 for medium
level, and 3 for high level of traceability.

X1

Type of plant

Dummy variable which take value of 1 for the corresponding
category and 0 otherwise. The categories could be slaughter,
processor, distributor, other, slaughter and processor, slaughter
and distributor, processor and distributor, etc.

X2

Meat type

Dummy variable which take value of 1 for the corresponding
category and 0 otherwise. The main categories could be meat-only
versus meat and poultry plants. Meat category could be further
divided into sub-categories such as beef-only, pork-only, beef-
mixed, pork-mixed, etc depending on the percentages of these
meat types within the plant’s total annual production.

X3

Size of plant

Dummy variable which could take value of 1 for the
corresponding category and 0 otherwise. The categories are very
small, small, medium, and large depending on the size of annual
sales.

X4

Age of plant

Continuous variable indicating the number of years plant has been
operating.

X5

Capital intensity

Dummy variable which takes value of 1 for the corresponding
category and 0 otherwise. Categories could be very low, low,
medium, high depending on the value of plant’s capital versus the
number of employees at the plant.

X6

Market orientation

Dummy variable which take value of 1 for the corresponding
category and 0 otherwise. Categories could be intrastate-only,
interstate-only, exporter-only, interstate and exporter, etc.

X7

Concentration of
suppliers

Continuous variable indicating the share of top three suppliers in
plant’s total dollar value of inputs (animal/fresh meat)

X8

Concentration of
customers

Continuous variable indicating the share of top three customers in
plant’s total sales revenue

X9

Credence claims

Dummy variable which take value of 1 for the corresponding
category and 0 otherwise. Categories could be constructed based
on the share of products with credence claims within total annual
sales.__________________________________________________________________________