Retailers’ strategies developed in Spain and Italy after BSE crisis have largely
responded to the consumers requests as shown in this research, especially when
accompanied to voluntary labelling and traceability schemes. This can be
interpreted as a lesson learnt after 2001 beef consumption drop; on the other hand,
the retailers communication may have somehow influenced the consumers’
perception of beef quality and safety. If it was the case, what retailers offer is
exactly what consumers perceive to be important; the strong trust feeling in
retailers emerged especially in Italy seems to confirm this hypothesis. However this
qualitative research cannot answer to a similar question and further quantitative
analysis can thus be performed.
Nowadays, as emerged from the focus groups, price is becoming more and more
important in the product choice at the point of sales. Other studies have shown that
the valorisation strategies performed by Italian retailers for beef sold with private
label and voluntary labelled information require an extra- price to be paid of about
10- 12% (Menozzi; 2006). Thus, the future success of these strategies will also
depends on the willingness of consumers to continue to pay this premium price for
quality certified beef.
7. Acknowledgments
This paper results from a study carried out in the framework of an EU project
(TRACE- Tracing the origin of food) funded through the Food and Quality Priority
of the EU Framework VI research programme, see www.trace.eu.org . The authors
belong to the WP7 ‘Consumer Behaviour’.
8. References
18