A bottom-up model to describe consumers’ preferences towards late season peaches
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Date
2015
Authors
Groot, EtiénneAlbisu Aguado, Luis Miguel
Journal Title
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Journal ContributionArticle
Abstract
Peaches are consumed in Mediterranean countries since ancient times. Nowadays there are few areas in Europe that produce
peaches with Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), and the Calanda area is one of them. The aim of this work is to describe consumers’
preferences towards late season PDO Calanda peaches in the city of Zaragoza, Spain, by a bottom-up model. The bottom-up
model proves greater amount of information than top-down models. In this approach it is estimated one utility function per consumer.
Thus, it is not necessary to make assumptions about preference distributions and correlations across respondents. It was observed
that preference distributions were neither normal nor independently distributed. If those preferences were estimated by top-down
models, conclusions would be biased. This paper also explores a new way to describe preferences through individual utility functions.
Results show that the largest behavioural group gathered origin sensitive consumers. Their utility increased if the peaches were produced
in the Calanda area and, especially, when peaches had the PDO Calanda brand. In sequence, the second most valuable attribute
for consumers was the price. Peach size and packaging were not so important on purchase choice decision. Nevertheless, it is advisable
to avoid trading smallest size peaches (weighting around 160 g/fruit). Traders also have to be careful by using active packaging.
It was found that a group of consumers disliked this kind of product, probably, because they perceived it as less natural.
Description
Keywords
PDO Calanda peaches, Best-worst choice experiment, Stated preference, Individual preference
Bibliographic citation
Spanish Journal Of Agricultural Research, 13 (4), p. e0110
AGROVOC subjects
MercadosDurazno
Denominación de origen
Comportamiento del consumidor