Consumer preferences: product attributes determinants of honey consumption
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Honey is considered the only food of animal origin that can be consumed without being processed
(Pocol and Teselios, 2012). The literature presents several reasons associated with the consumption
of honey, namely, it is a natural and healthy product; its dietary, nutritional and medicinal
characteristics; the product quality; the geographical region of production; the information
available on the products’ label, the brand's reputation; as well as, the variety, texture, taste,
aroma, appearance, packaging and price (Yeow et al., 2013, Ismaiel et al., 2014; Wu et al., 2015,
Ribeiro and Fernandes, 2017).
The present research intends to identify the intrinsic and extrinsic attributes of honey on which
consumers base their purchasing decision. Thus, a cross-sectional study was developed based on a
non-probabilistic sample composed by 474 individuals, from which 399 were honey consumers.
Data collection took place from March to May 2016 and was based on a questionnaire developed
by Ribeiro et al. (2009), which was applied directly to consumers in the city of Bragança. Later, data
was treated using the SPSS 23.0 software. The data analysis includes univariate and multivariate
analysis. The first consists on a univariate descriptive analysis, namely, the calculation of relative
and absolute frequencies in qualitative variables and the calculation of measures of central
tendency and dispersion in quantitative variables; and the multivariate analysis includes the
estimation of a binary logistic regression in order to identify the product attributes determinants of
honey consumption. In the logistic regression model, the stepwise method was used to choose the
factors. The overall validity of the model was tested using likelihood ratio (LR), as well as,
the significance of each estimated parameter, with hypotheses H0: βj = 0 and H1: βj ≠ 0, at a
significance level of 1%. Plus, the adjustment quality of the model was tested using the Nagelkerke
R2, a coefficient that reveals the proportion of variation explained in the model of logistic
regression. The majority of the surveyed honey consumers were aged between 25 and 64 years old (61.2%),
were female (58.1%), employee (45.6%), had secondary school level (36, 6%) and higher education (40.6%). Additionally, they lived in households of 3 (21.6%) and 4 people (36.3%), with a monthly
income of up to 999 euros (50.5%) and in the urban area (56.1%). The honey attributes most valued
by the respondents, in order of importance, were: taste (71.4%); aroma and crystalline appearance
(57.1%); colour (51.5%); viscosity (47.2%); geographic origin (42.3%); certification label (42.4%) and
price (41.2%).
The output of the logistic regression model estimation is shown in Table 1. The estimated model is
statistically significant (significance = 0.000). The results show that the statistically significant
parameters are taste, colour, origin and certification label, at a level of significance of 1%. These
characteristics accounted for 68.9% of the consumer's decision to buy honey. It is noteworthy that
the certification label is considered important by non-honey consumers, probably when they buy
the product to offer. While taste, colour and origin are important characteristics that honey
consumers value in the purchasing decision process of this product.
Honey is considered the only food of animal origin that can be consumed without being processed (Pocol and Teselios, 2012). The literature presents several reasons associated with the consumption of honey, namely, the fact of being a natural and healthy product; its dietary, nutritional and medicinal characteristics; the product quality; the geographical region of production; the information available on the products’ label, the brand's reputation; as well as the variety, texture, taste, aroma, appearance, packaging and price (Yeow et al., 2013; Wu et al., 2015). The present research intends to identify the intrinsic and extrinsic attributes of honey on which consumers base their purchasing decision.
