The name is absent

of study in order to get a deeper understanding of the role of the ‘ability- to- trace’
concerning food production systems and food products, especially beef, as a cue in
consumer decision- making. Information was gathered in each country from
publications in journals, books, conference proceedings, reports and thesis
published in the last 10 years whether in own or other language.

Subsequently, focus group interview method was chosen for the qualitative part.
This is a widely used method in marketing research, for which a large literature on
practical and theoretical applications exists. However, because of its qualitative
approach, it is often used in combination with quantitative studies . In this case, the
focus group technique allowed to gain information on consumer traceability
perception along different European countries, in order to outline further stages of
the research. In this paper, we focus on the results of Italian and Spanish
participants, displaying differences and similarities between them.

One pilot focus group and three focus groups per country were organised in
summer and fall 2005 respectively, in both countries. The number of participants
varied between 8 and 12 persons per group who were recruited basically by means
of a list of contacts. In the Italian case, several participants answered to the specific
announcement published for the purpose on local newspapers. Although it was
arranged to get well balanced concerning gender and age of participants, women
are still the habitual person in charge of purchase at home and hence more
involved with food purchase aspects. This is particularly true for the Spanish focus
groups; for the Italian ones genders are more balanced, while average age of
participants is lower, with only 17% of people over 60 years old, and more workers
involved (half of the participants were “in paid work” employees). This can probably
be explained by the hour of the focus group which was established late in the
afternoon in the Italian case, allowing working people to participate and
discouraging older people to take part at the discussion. Each session was
conducted by one moderator who asked the questions and some co- moderators
who took written notes and also cared of recorders and pictures delivering.
Sessions were digital and video recorded and lasted no more than 90 minutes.
Afterwards they were transcribed word by word.

For each focus group it was prepared different guides, increasing the demanded
level of participants’ involvement with traceability. Hence, it was necessary to
recruit different kind of consumers depending on their capability to understand the
discussed points concerning traceability and level of food orientation. In Spain the
recruitment criterion for the last focus groups was mostly based on the educational
level in order to generate interesting results, while in Italy this criterion was not
explicitly followed. shows the profiles of the participants of the organised sessions.

For the data analysis, it was chosen Atlas.ti 5.0, software indicated for qualitative
analysis data. Instead of using visual coding, this software provides tools for coding
at codes, which are basically containers of information, i.e. concepts, or abstract
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