Quality Determinants and Effect of Therapeutic Properties in Honey Consumption. An Exploratory Study on Italian Consumers

Abstract

Nowadays, more and more consumers show a growing interest in healthy food products that may help to maintain or improve human health, such as honey. Honey has always represented a fundamental component of traditional medicine in many world cultures. However, only thanks to several studies carried out in the last years, its use is considered as an alternative and complementary medicine, namely apitherapy. In this way, honey is recognized increasingly by consumers not only as a natural alternative to refined sugar but as healthy food, as shown by determining an increase of its consumption worldwide. This study aims to explore the consumers’ determinants of honey consumption, trying to understand whether, and how much, therapeutic properties of honey affect the Italian consumers’ choices. The findings of this study, although exploratory, provide information on which quality characteristics influence honey consumption in Italy, revealing that, among quality attributes, the therapeutic properties of honey play an important role in affecting consumers’ behavior, followed by income, variety and taste. This could have some implications for producers and marketers as this information could contribute to defining effective marketing strategies for communicating to consumers the quality attributes of honey and its therapeutic benefits.

The role of intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics of honey for Italian millennial consumers

“…In most of the literature explored, honey consumer attitudes and preferences are linked to extrinsic and sensory attributes (Arvanitoyannis and Krystallis, 2006;Batt and Liu, 2012;Cosmina et al, 2016), in addition to the uses and motivations related to health benefits (Br s ci c et al, 2017;Ismaiel et al, 2014;Testa et al, 2019) or environmental sustainability (Arvanitoyannis and Krystallis, 2006;Jensen and Mørkbak, 2013). In addition, other authors (Jones Ritten et al, 2019;Kallas et al, 2019;Schifani et al, 2016) have supported the role of geographical proximity, by analysing the consumer drivers for locally produced honey.…”

Interdisciplinary Approach Towards Consumer Acceptability of Flavoured Honey: Case of Young Generation in Slovakia

“…Several studies on the consumption behavior of honey show that the frequency of consumption is lower among young consumers compared to older generations, emphasizing the need for better promotion of bee products among this age segment (Testa et al, 2019;Pidek, 2001; Pocol and Bolboacă, 2013). Popescu and Guresoaie (2019) observed that the 36-50 age group, followed by the 51-65 one are the most loyal consumers of honey, regardless of quantity.…”

The Amber-Colored Liquid: A Review on the Color Standards, Methods of Detection, Issues and Recommendations

“…As for common consumer products with amber-colored liquids such as cooking oil, honey, maple syrup and beer, consumers evaluate the color of the product apart from the product packaging, price and label information [ 33 ]. The color of these amber-colored liquid products is highly related to its content, flavor and taste.…”

“…Other than that, the color of the honey and maple syrup also plays an important role in the market price of the products [ 35 ]. Appropriate color measurement allows exporters and producers to choose the most beneficial trading market for their products [ 33 , 36 ]. However, general consumer preferences toward the color of amber-colored liquid are still inconclusive.…”