Marketing Olive Oil Products in the Tunisian Local Market: The Importance of Quality Attributes and Consumers' Behavior

Abstract

This article is, to the best of our knowledge, the first investigation of Tunisian olive oil consumer behavior by the use of the conjoint analysis technique. The conjoint experiment was based on carefully selected olive oil attributes: type, taste, color, packaging, region of origin, and price. The results have important implications to improve the marketing of olive oil in the local market by focusing on key preferred attributes. Consumers were found to prefer more extra-virgin, followed by virgin olive oil, to pomace oil. They also showed higher preference for green colored olive oil with strong flavored taste. Contrary to a common belief in Tunisia, the region of origin attribute did not show significant effect on consumers’ purchasing decisions. The results show also that Tunisian olive oil consumers are price sensitive and therefore any price strategy to introduce bottled products should take into account consumers’ preferences for bulk purchase.

KEYWORDS:

• olive oil
• conjoint analysis
• consumers
• willingness to pay
• discrete choice models
• Tunisia

Acknowledgments

Nadhem Mtimet is now at the International Livestock Research Institute.

We acknowledge funding by the Spanish Agency of International Cooperation and Development and the Tunisian Ministry of Higher Education and Research under the project reference A/6285/06- A/010128/07. We also thank the editor/reviewer of this journal for his valuable comments to improve the quality of the article.

Notes

^a One TND (Tunisian dinar) is the equivalent of 0.565 Euro.

Note. Standard deviation in parentheses.

^a Threshold parameters are not reported for space constraint, but they are all statistically significant at 1% level.

^b Dummy variable that takes 1 when it is an extra-virgin olive oil and 0 otherwise.

^c Dummy variable that takes 1 when it is a virgin olive oil and 0 otherwise.

^d Dummy variable that takes 1 when it is a strong flavored taste and 0 otherwise.

^e Dummy variable that takes 1 when the olive oil color is yellow and 0 otherwise.

^f Dummy variable that takes 1 when the olive oil is in bulk and 0 otherwise.

^g Dummy variable that takes 1 when the olive oil origin is from the north of Tunisia and 0 otherwise.

^***Significant at 1%. ^**Significant at 5%. ^*Significant at 10%.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nadhem Mtimet

Nadhem Mtimet is a senior scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

Lokman Zaibet

Lokman Zaibet is an associate professor at Ecole Supérieure d'Agriculture de Mograne, University of Carthage, Tunisia.

Chokri Zairi

Chokri Zairi is an agro-economist engineer at the Tunisian Ministry of Agriculture.

Hamida Hzami

Hamida Hzami is a master student at the Institut National Agronomique de Tunis, Tunisia.