The consumer demand has largely promoted organic strawberry production in the U.S. over the past two decades. The farm gate value of organic strawberries increased from $80 million in 2008 to $300 million in 2019, and organic strawberries accounted for about 25% of the 2022 U.S. strawberry sales. While Florida represents a smaller share than California, its organic acreage grew from less than 20 acres in 2008 to over 600 acres in 2019. Recent advances in agricultural technology have played an important role in improving strawberry yields and quality. The tabletop hydroponic system is among the new systems introduced to strawberry production with the aim of reducing labor requirements, enhancing input efficiency, and improving disease, pest, and weed management. However, no study has examined its impact on strawberry fruit regarding sensory attributes and consumer attitudes toward such a system for organic and conventional strawberry production. This study was conducted to assess consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for conventional and organic strawberries harvested from the tabletop hydroponic system under two scenarios, i.e., based on the blind sensory evaluation vs. after revealing the production method information (organic or conventional and tabletop hydroponic system). The consumer sensory evaluation was conducted at the University of Florida campus, with 61 participants. Participants first blind tasted four strawberry samples, including two organically grown and the other two conventionally produced, all from a tabletop growing system established for an on-farm trial. They evaluated sensory attributes using a just-about-right (JAR) scale and a hedonic scale, and reported their WTP before and after tasting the strawberry samples. Subsequently, participants were informed about organic and tabletop production methods used to produce the strawberries and asked to re-evaluate their WTP. Results indicate that consumers had a higher WTP for organic strawberries than their conventional counterparts, both before and after tasting. After being informed about which samples were organic, 28% of participants reported no additional WTP, 47% were willing to pay up to $1 more, and 22% were willing to pay $1 to $2 more, with an average premium of $0.79. These findings remained consistent after controlling for sensory attributes and demographics. When knowing the berries were produced in a tabletop system, the average WTP for organic strawberries increased by $0.73, while it increased by $0.56 for conventional strawberries. In addition, participants tended to associate organic strawberry samples with higher sensory evaluation scores and link lower sensory scores to conventional strawberry samples.
