Analyzing Consumer Preferences for Honey: Empirical Evidence from Albania

Abstract

The honey sector in Albania has experienced significant changes since the transition to a market economy, and the daily per capita consumption of natural honey is now among the highest in the Mediterranean area. A variety of forests and pastures makes possible the production of different types of honey. The main objective of this study consists in examining Albanian customers’ buying habits with regard to natural honey in Tirana, Albania. For this purpose, an ordinal regression method is used to examine the relationship between the use of natural honey for medicinal purposes and a set of quality attributes of the same product such as taste, flavor, origin and color. In order to meet these objectives, a set of 353 questionnaires were implemented. Analysis shows that natural honey is clearly part of the diet of people from Tirana, and that the primary reason for consuming honey is to sustain health, not culinary purposes. Among the most important attributes considered in the buying process is the origin of the product, which is one of the attributes that has been demonstrated to generate expectations about other product attributes such as safety and nutritional value.