Governments and policy play an important role in prompting the public and private interest for local and traditional food, in order to increase the variety of food choice for consumers (Guerrero et al., 2012) and to foster local economies and rural regions development (Feldmann et al., 2015). Our study may provide useful indication to food companies and producers to invest in innovative products based on traditional regional raw materials tailoring marketing actions and investments. But how consumers perceive the quality of products made from native crops varieties? Recent review on consumers perception and preferences for local and traditional food emphasizes that, unlike organic food, local ones are not perceived as expensive but consumers would be willing to pay a premium price to access them (Feldmann et al., 2015). Does this conclusion still hold in case of durum wheat pasta obtained from traditional wheat varieties? Answer to the latter question is one of the aims of the paper. Moreover in order to maintain and even increase the traditional food products’ market share they need to be improved by introducing innovations that fulfil the European consumers’ demand for better traditional food product from different perspectives, including for example health, safety, taste and convenience characteristics (Cayot, 2007). Indeed, other studies investigating how consumers perceive the meaning of terms such as ‘traditional’ and ‘Innovation’, found a noticeable incompatibility between the two concepts (Guerrero et al., 2012). However, assuming a positive feeling and attitude of consumers towards those products, the main aim of the article is to address consumers preferences towards different attributes of pasta. Conjoint analysis will be developed to assess consumer perception towards pasta made from native durum wheat varieties. On purpose more then 258 habitual consumers of pasta from Apulia region were interviewed using internet based tools.
Consumers perception of traditional sustainable food: an exploratory study on pasta made from native ancient durum wheat varieties
CONTO', FRANCESCO;ANTONAZZO, ANNA PAOLA;CONTE, ALESSANDRA;CAFARELLI, BARBARA
2016-01-01
Abstract
Governments and policy play an important role in prompting the public and private interest for local and traditional food, in order to increase the variety of food choice for consumers (Guerrero et al., 2012) and to foster local economies and rural regions development (Feldmann et al., 2015). Our study may provide useful indication to food companies and producers to invest in innovative products based on traditional regional raw materials tailoring marketing actions and investments. But how consumers perceive the quality of products made from native crops varieties? Recent review on consumers perception and preferences for local and traditional food emphasizes that, unlike organic food, local ones are not perceived as expensive but consumers would be willing to pay a premium price to access them (Feldmann et al., 2015). Does this conclusion still hold in case of durum wheat pasta obtained from traditional wheat varieties? Answer to the latter question is one of the aims of the paper. Moreover in order to maintain and even increase the traditional food products’ market share they need to be improved by introducing innovations that fulfil the European consumers’ demand for better traditional food product from different perspectives, including for example health, safety, taste and convenience characteristics (Cayot, 2007). Indeed, other studies investigating how consumers perceive the meaning of terms such as ‘traditional’ and ‘Innovation’, found a noticeable incompatibility between the two concepts (Guerrero et al., 2012). However, assuming a positive feeling and attitude of consumers towards those products, the main aim of the article is to address consumers preferences towards different attributes of pasta. Conjoint analysis will be developed to assess consumer perception towards pasta made from native durum wheat varieties. On purpose more then 258 habitual consumers of pasta from Apulia region were interviewed using internet based tools.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
