Attitudes towards honey among Italian consumers: A choice experiment approach

Abstract

4Honey is becoming increasingly popular with consumers for its nutritional benefits as well as 5 many other functions. The objective of this article is to determine which factors influence 6 consumers' purchase intentions and to assess the importance of certain honey characteristics to 7 enable identification of the constituents of an ideal honey profile. This information will lead to 8 satisfaction of consumers' preferences and formulation of marketing strategies that support 9 honey makers. 10We applied a choice experiment to the Italian honey market to define the preferences and the 11 willingness to pay for key characteristics of the product. A face-to-face questionnaire survey 12 was conducted in 2014 (January-July) among Italian consumers; it was completed by 427 13 respondents. A latent class model was estimated and four classes were identified, with different 14 preferences, illustrating that respondents seem to be heterogeneous honey consumers Results 15 suggest the "organic" attribute was more important than others factors, such as the place where 16 the honey was produced (landscape), but less important than the country of origin; local Italian 17 honey was preferred to foreign honey. Respondents showed a higher willingness to pay (WTP) 18 for honey from their country of origin versus the production method used. Our results suggest 19 that while organic beekeeping might be an important strategy for diversification, if suitable 20 communication is not taken into consideration, the added value of the production method 21 might not be perceived by consumers. 22 23

What Matters When Purchasing Fresh Agri-Food for Taiwanese Consumers? A Best-Worst Scaling Approach

“…The third class, the CoO-driven shoppers (17.90%) perceived the CoO information to be the most relevant criterion when buying sweet pepper, followed with some distance by price and the labelling of production methods. While many of the previous studies have determined that the CoO information has played an important role in consumers' food consumption and preference [8] [81] [84], in our study findings also reveal the presence of a market segment interested in the CoO labelling of the foods. Finally, the Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric test [71] was employed to further explore whether the three consumer groups significantly differ with respect to demographic variables among the segments.…”

Chemometric approach to the analysis of antioxidant properties and colour of typical Italian monofloral honeys

“…Hundreds of different unifloral honeys are known, and at least half of them can be produced in Italy (Osservatorio Nazionale Miele 2013) because of the appropriate geographical and climatic conditions for apiculture. Unifloral honeys have high demand and commercial value on the market for their particular sensory characteristics, and Italian consumers show strong positive preferences for locally produced unifloral honeys (Cosmina et al, 2016).…”

Sustainable Consumption: Proposal of a Multistage Model to Analyse Consumer Behaviour for Organic Foods

“…Per‐capita consumption of organic foods in Spain is only €21, with a market share of 1%, figures which are a long way off those of other European countries such as Switzerland, Denmark and Austria, where per‐capita consumption is approximately €150–200, with a market share of around 7% (Willer and Schaack, ). So most of Spain's organic produce (over 60%) is destined to external markets – mainly Germany, France and the UK – which does not seem a particularly sustainable strategy in the long run for various reasons: competition from other countries, the growing preference of external markets for locally sourced produce (Brugarolas and Rivera, ; Cosmina et al, ), and the concerns of some segments of the market regarding just how ecofriendly a product can be once it has been transported over hundreds or even thousands of kilometres.…”