What's a little mold? Why
consumers have different freshness standards at home
Published:
Monday, January 26, 2009 - 13:16 in
Mathematics & Economics
Why is it acceptable for
someone who would never purchase "expired" milk at the store to pour
"expired" milk into a cup of coffee at breakfast? A new study in the
Journal of Consumer Research explores the reasons consumers are more
likely to consume products that are past their expiration dates if they
are in their refrigerators than if they are in a store. Authors Sankar Sen
and Lauren G. Block (both Baruch College/CUNY) explored a phenomenon
termed the "endowment effect," meaning that owning a product increases a
consumer's valuation of it. The endowment effect has been studied before,
but not in regard to perishable products.
"Few people would knowingly
purchase products past their freshness dates; in fact, shoppers often
leave supermarket shelves in disarray after combing the display for, say,
the carton of milk stamped with the freshness date furthest away," the
authors write. While there are many possible reasons consumers may want to
consume "expired" food in their refrigerators, including "getting their
money's worth," the authors found that even when they controlled for costs
and motivations, consumers were still more likely to eat or drink expired
products that were already in their possession.
"In this research, we show
that merely owning a product past its freshness date provides enough
reason for people to be willing to consume such expired
products...Importantly, this increase in a person's willingness to consume
an expired product is accompanied by lower estimates of the perceived risk
of getting sick from consuming it," the authors explain.
In three studies, the
researchers compared whether people wanted to consume yogurt smoothies
that were past or not past their freshness dates. The authors believe that
"ownership" of the smoothie shifted the default hypothesis from "shouldn't
consume because expired" to "okay to consume."
"If you caught a glimpse of
moldy cheese being served at a function you were attending, you wouldn't
eat it, thinking it likely that you could get sick from old cheese," write
the authors. "However, if that same moldy cheese is in your refrigerator,
hey, what's a little mold?"
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