What Is Craft?—An Empirical Analysis of Consumer Preferences for Craft Beer in Italy

Abstract

This paper discusses the term "craft" and its meaning from the consumer's perspective. Consumers assign value to craft products for their uniqueness, customization, originality, and personality. Craft products are usually sold at higher prices than non-craft products. Therefore, we need to understand what consumers expect in a craft product. We collect original data and present an empirical investigation using conjoint analysis. We focus on the case of craft beer in Italy. Based on our results, consumers believe that the ownership, firm size, and production process are crucial attributes that define craft beer. In particular, we show that consumers believe that craft beer is produced by an independent (family-owned) firm in a small-scale plant and is non-pasteurized.

Social representations of craft food products in three European countries

“…Among them, Garavaglia & Mussini (2020) pointed out the relevance of providing evidence on the consumer perception of "craft" food products, including but not limiting to craft beer, and extending the analysis to other countries, highlighting that this is yet an under studied issue.…”

“…In light of these considerations, in this study, the rank-frequency method was adopted for conducting the prototypical analysis of the social representations (referred to here as SRs) of CFPs, and conceived as a foodstuffs category in line with the Garavaglia & Mussini's (2020) suggestion. To the best of our knowledge, there is not yet a cross-national analysis of the SRs of CFPs as here conceived, between European countries, and with a focus on specific age groups.…”

Beyond Cultural Accounts: The Durable Connections between Humans and Beer

“…The notion that "craft" means local and small scale (i.e. non-corporate) has been documented in the US (Carroll and Swaminathan, 2000) Italy (Garavaglia and Mussini, 2020) and South Africa (Green, 2015). Social science researchers have offered neolocalism (Flack, 1997;Schnell and Reese, 2003) and population ecology (Carroll and Swaminathan, 2000) to explain why craft beer emerged.…”

The Value of Craft Beer Styles: Evidence from the Italian Market

“…The recent market trends have led to a significant increase in the variety of craft beers available on the market (hyperdifferentiation), and consumers highly demand products that precisely meet their needs and desires [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 ]. As a result of high-quality differentiation, the craft beer market is also characterized by high price variability, which reflects both different production costs and different consumer willingness to pay.…”