Factors Effecting Consumer Preferences for Geographical Indication Products in Turkey

Proceedings of The 4th International Conference on Research in Business, Management and Finance

Year: 2022

DOI:

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Factors Effecting Consumer Preferences for Geographical Indication Products in Turkey

Ebru Genc

ABSTRACT: 

Authentic food consumption is growing popularity among consumers. This brings attention geographical indication (GI) products. GI products corresponds to a specific geographic location or origin. However, understanding the authenticity and originality of these products is challenging for consumers. At this point, GI labelling helps consumers by providing information on these characteristics. EU has already established certification and logo systems. Turkey has also its own certification system and recently introduced logos which are very similar to EU GI logos. Per increased importance of GI products, we want to study factors affecting consumers’ consumption tendencies of these products. We looked at consumer ethnocentrism, demographic factors like income and education and perceived taste and health benefits of GI products. Our sample size is 400. We collected our sample from six different regions in Turkey which is a very good representative of the entire country. Our data shows that consumer ethnocentrism, demographic factors like income and education and perceived taste and health benefits are significantly affecting GI products consumption tendencies. However, we had surprising results for the impact of education and income.

keywords: geographical indications, consumer ethnocentrism.