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Quality Determinants and Effect of Therapeutic Properties in Honey Consumption. An Exploratory Study on Italian Consumers

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  • Riccardo Testa

    (Department of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Sciences, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze 13, Building 4, 90128 Palermo, Italy)

  • Antonio Asciuto

    (Department of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Sciences, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze 13, Building 4, 90128 Palermo, Italy)

  • Giorgio Schifani

    (Department of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Sciences, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze 13, Building 4, 90128 Palermo, Italy)

  • Emanuele Schimmenti

    (Department of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Sciences, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze 13, Building 4, 90128 Palermo, Italy)

  • Giuseppina Migliore

    (Department of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Sciences, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze 13, Building 4, 90128 Palermo, Italy)

Abstract

Nowadays, more and more consumers show a growing interest in healthy food products that may help to maintain or improve human health, such as honey. Honey has always represented a fundamental component of traditional medicine in many world cultures. However, only thanks to several studies carried out in the last years, its use is considered as an alternative and complementary medicine, namely apitherapy. In this way, honey is recognized increasingly by consumers not only as a natural alternative to refined sugar but as healthy food, as shown by determining an increase of its consumption worldwide. This study aims to explore the consumers’ determinants of honey consumption, trying to understand whether, and how much, therapeutic properties of honey affect the Italian consumers’ choices. The findings of this study, although exploratory, provide information on which quality characteristics influence honey consumption in Italy, revealing that, among quality attributes, the therapeutic properties of honey play an important role in affecting consumers’ behavior, followed by income, variety and taste. This could have some implications for producers and marketers as this information could contribute to defining effective marketing strategies for communicating to consumers the quality attributes of honey and its therapeutic benefits.

Suggested Citation

  • Riccardo Testa & Antonio Asciuto & Giorgio Schifani & Emanuele Schimmenti & Giuseppina Migliore, 2019. "Quality Determinants and Effect of Therapeutic Properties in Honey Consumption. An Exploratory Study on Italian Consumers," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-12, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jagris:v:9:y:2019:i:8:p:174-:d:255387
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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