Consumers are increasingly interested in the origin of their food, especially in the case of meat products where food safety issues are relevant. The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the trend of regional food consumption and the influencing factors for consumer preferences of regional meat products. For the first time cognitive, normative and affective attributes, as well as point of purchase and socio-demographic characteristics, were put together in a conceptual framework to investigate which factors are influencing consumer preferences for regional meat products.
A representative sample of German consumers was surveyed in 2014. After measuring the determinants of perceived quality of regional meat products, an attribute-level factor analysis were used to test inter-dependence between the variables. All five factors, accounting for 77 percent of the sample, were examined by a binary logistic regression model.
Logit regression analysis found that three factors, including normative and affective attributes, significantly affect and influence consumer preferences for regional meat products, whereas cognitive attributes have no significant influence on consumer preferences.
The findings have interesting implications for retailers with respect to meat marketing activities, as well as for researchers with respect to further research on regional meat products. Though, it comes out that it is promising to concentrate on normative and affective attributes regarding product presentation and meat marketing of regional meat products.
