Origin or Food Safety attributes? Analyzing consumer preferences using Likert Scale. Empirical evidence from Albania
New Medit, vol 14, n.4, (December 2015), pp. 50-57
Language: EN
Jel classification: M31, M38
Albania is moving forward in the process of alignment with EU legislation in agriculture, food and rural development sectors. In the years to come, the harmonization with the EU legislation will be the main workload for the Albanian policy makers. The role of consumers and their perception of new food-related regulations should be the main focus for policy makers in order to adapt and respond with the new policy instruments to consumer concerns. This paper aims at analyzing which type of potential label information is of interest to Albanian consumers in food products. We investigate consumer preference for different attributes of food products such as COOL (Made in Albania), pesticide-free, chemical- free, Organic production and Organic Certified Product, using an ordered five-point Likert Scale method. Ordinal regression is applied to investigate socio-economic effects on responses. Results show that consumers link domestic products with more safe products. High-income earners and highly educated people are more likely to give high scores to food safety attributes rather than to origin attribute.
Albania, Likert Scale, preferences, ordinal regression, food safety, origin
