Preferences for Attributes of Industrial Potatoes: An Empirical Investigation of the Swiss Market
Boesch, Irene
In: American Journal of Potato Research, 2012, vol. 89, no. 3, p. 199-206
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- Managing the transition from a commodity to a differentiated good in an increasingly liberalized, price-driven world is a challenge for Swiss producers of potatoes. To facilitate this process at the production level, knowledge about preferences in terms of product attributes is needed. We evaluate processor preferences regarding potato product attributes such as price and country of origin. Attributes are selected according to their influence on the buying decision of the processors. Additionally, we quantify the relative importance of product attributes for the main market segments chips, fries, and flakes. By applying a discreet-choice experiment with Bayesian estimation of individual part-worth utilities and randomized first-choice models for scenario analysis, we find that color, size and producer price determine 46% of the buying decision. However, while price is an important decision criterion, product and supplier criteria can be used to segment the market if the price premium is held within limits and size and color requirements are met