The consumer willingness to pay for food services: an analysis of the Popular Restaurant Program in northern Brazil

Resumo

The Brazilian Popular Restaurant Program is a food security and nutrition policy that seeks to generate a food protection net in areas where vulnerable people eat most of their meals outside of their home. For this purpose, the Program targets those who are conside-red the most deprived people, especially regarding socio-economic and health conditions. Based on this, the contingent valuation method and a censored tobit model were applied aiming at estimating the maximum willingness to pay (WTP) for food services of two Popular Restaurants in the city of Palmas, northern Brazil. For this purpose, specific questionnaires were applied to 600 consumers, and economic, social, health and nutritio-nal aspects were collected. Therefore, total WTP estimated was R$ 72.320,00 per month, or R$ 1,80 per consumer per month, or R$ 0.09 per meal per day. The WTP is positively related to consumer’s income and educational level, and negatively related to consumer’s age. One should expect that the results of the research may support local and national government towards the implementation of future policies regarding the better manage-ment of the program. Key words: Popular restaurant. Willingness to pay. Contingent valuation. Tobit model. Brazil.