Valuing nested names in the Portuguese olive oil market: An exploratory study

The Portuguese olive oil market had a remarkable development in recent years. Production is rising steadily is response to a EU program supporting a renewal of olive groves. Moreover there is a proliferation of national brands and private labels. These are often associated to regional collective labels or to organic production. The aim of our research is to determine how consumers value these nested names or co-brands. We conducted a pilot survey on a convenience sample of 103 consumers in the Oporto and Lisbon metropolitan areas as well in a rural area. Our results reveal some contradictions, for instance while origin is an important purchasing criteria, few PDO olive oils are recognized. Moreover, only 25% of respondents identify organic olive oils sold in the market and this attribute is one of the last purchasing criteria, but organic olive oils have the highest willingness to pay. Finally we find that associating a PDO to private labels increases willingness to pay by 33.3%, but doesn’t affect valuation of national brands. While we can’t take definite conclusions our findings give us interesting cues for future research. Therefore we aim to investigate whether regional identity, alternative usage and health or environmental conscience determine of affect valuation and choices of different olive oils brands and labels.