PSXIII-26 Are consumers’ culinary skills related to their purchasing attitudes towards pork?
Abstract Consumers’ food-related lifestyles may affect purchasing attitudes towards meat. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of consumers’ culinary skills on their attitudes towards pork in two country regions of North-Eastern Spain and Portugal. Survey data were collected through an on-line questionnaire (Catalonia, n = 442; Aragon, n = 342; Northern Portugal, n = 190; all of whom consumed pork). Each respondent was asked questions regarding consumer purchasing habits that were used to segment the consumers through hierarchical clustering according to their culinary skills. A 5-point Likert scale was used to assess the importance of intrinsic and extrinsic cues towards pork (20 questions). Wilcoxon tests with pair-wise comparisons were conducted to cross consumer clusters with their purchasing drivers. Two optimal clusters were identified: “uninvolved” consumers that liked cooking to a lesser extent (P < 0.001), normally ate out on working days (P < 0.001), considered traditional recipes best (P = 0.008), spent less time cooking (P < 0.001), did not like changes in their meals (P < 0.001), considered less important meal planning for family nutrition (P < 0.001), enjoyed to a lesser extent shopping for food (P < 0.001), payed less attention to advertisements (P = 0.03) and food label information (P < 0.001) than “innovative cook lovers.” Interestingly, the two clusters did not differ in enjoying social eating out, following a shopping list, preferring butchers rather than supermarkets, or over the counter purchases rather than packaged meat. “Best before date,” “safety” and “appeal (colour, drip loss)” were the most important criteria for purchase decision in both clusters. The “price” importance was greater (P < 0.05) whereas “cooking ease” was less valued (P = 0.04) by “innovative cook lovers” than by “uninvolved” consumers. The least rated driver was “slaughter method,” although it was scored greater by “innovative cook lovers” than by “uninvolved” consumers (P = 0.04). In summary, innovative cook lovers may be more exigent consumers (price and animal welfare sensitive).