Product differentiation and demand for animal-source foods in Côte d’Ivoire

This report presents a demand analysis of primary data collected from 562 households in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. Findings show that Ivorian consumers purchase animal-source food more from traditional retailers where source-differentiated foods are sold in simple or primary forms. There is, however, an emergence of local and international retail brands (modern butcheries, supermarkets) trading in more specialized or processed animal food products. Consumers are generally sensitive to expenditure variation in their demand for chicken and fish. The expenditure elasticities of chicken and fish were found to be significant and positive. The elasticity of fish was estimated greater than one while that of chicken was slightly lower (0.96), indicating fish as a superior good in the households surveyed. The expenditure elasticity of beef was not significant meaning that the increase in expenditure has no effect on the demand for beef.