The influence of country of origin on German consumer preferences for peaches: a latent class choice model

Germany is an important world level market for fresh fruit. Spain and Italy are the main suppliers of freshfruit on the German market while the main imported products are apple, grapes, peaches and oranges. The aim of thispaper is to assess the role country of origin plays in the preferences of German consumers for peaches. Since Germanlegislation requires fresh fruit sold on the market to clearly display the product’s country of origin, Germanconsumers usually make their choice with this information to hand. How important is such information, and what isthe trade-off between country of origin and price or organic production system? We attempted to investigate suchconcerns through a choice experiment approach conducted by means of a questionnaire-based survey administered toa representative sample of 300 German households. In the experiment, respondents were asked to choose theirfavorite peach among four alternatives. Each peach was described as imported from four specific countries (Italy,Spain, Turkey and France) and available at a specific price; some of the peaches were certified Organic or PDO. Thestated choices are analyzed using a latent class choice model to derive estimates of preferences for peaches. Resultsindicate the presence of three distinct consumer segments in the German peach market. The largest segment (48%)showed a strong preference for Italian peaches as well as for organic and PDO certification. For this segment, pricewas not an important attribute. The second segment (41%) showed a strong preference for Spanish produce andorganic certification. Price was important in this case. The third segment (11%) had a negative preference for Italianand Spanish peaches, with price being the main attribute.