Consumer perception of dried dairy ingredients: Healthy, natural, and sustainable?

摘要

Conscious consumerism is growing, along with consumerdemand for socially conscious dairy productsor dairy alternatives. To successfully position dairyproducts (especially conventional dairy) in this changingmarketplace, dairy producers and processors mustunderstand how to strategically use both on- and offpackagemessaging aligned with consumer perceptions.However, consumer perception of attributes such assustainable, natural, and healthy is complex, and variesbetween product categories as well as among productswithin a category. The objective of this study was tocharacterize consumer definitions of the terms “sustainable,”“natural,” and “healthy” as they pertain to drieddairy ingredients. To meet this objective, we conductedan online survey with 3 maximum difference scalingexercises to determine the importance of 63 labelclaims to consumer definitions of the terms sustainable,natural, and healthy. The role of priming with driedingredient processing information on consumer perceptionof these terms was also explored. Within the drieddairy ingredients category, there is extensive cognitiveoverlap between the terms sustainable, natural, andhealthy. Priming did not affect consumer definitions ofany of these terms. Certification-related claims wereconsidered among the least important claims for consumerdefinitions of sustainable, natural, and healthy,whereas claims that were simple to read and visualizewere considered among the most important. Claimsrelated to animal welfare and happiness or simple,minimal ingredients and processing were considered byconsumers to be important for all 3 terms. For eachof these terms, there was a cluster of consumers whodefined the term primarily by simple ingredients andminimal processing, and another cluster who definedthe term primarily by happy cows and conscious farmingpractices. The terms sustainable and healthy eachhad a third, unique consumer cluster. This third definitioncluster defined sustainability primarily by environmentaleffects, whereas this cluster defined healthyprimarily in fitness and nutrition terms. Age and toa lesser extent, gender, affected importance placed onthese 3 terms and also affected definition of the term.Understanding these consumer definitions provides insighton how to formulate marketing and educationalmessaging to speak to each consumer segment.