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Tropentag, October 5 - 7, 2004 in Berlin
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German Consumers Image towards Argentinian Agricultural Products: An Approach to Develop New Products and Processes
Rodrigo Lueg, Anna Maria Häring, Eckhard Benner
University of Hohenheim, Institute of Farm Economics (410A), Germany
Abstract
Argentinean agricultural products are mainly exported with low added value and without any brand. One of the most important destinies of Argentinean agricultural exports is the European market. Argentina’s most competitive agricultural products on the international market other than grain commodities are beef, red wine, fruits and honey.
The objectives of this paper are:
- To explore if the European consumer has build an image of Argentinean agricultural products.
- To evaluate if the factors conforming this image, most likely related to certain products, can be transferred to other products through marketing and communication strategies or, in special cases, be transferred to processing, resulting in new products.
- To compare the ideal beef image with the Argentinean beef image.
- To explore the ideal basic characteristics of red wine, fruit, beef and honeys in the eyes of the German consumer.
The image of Argentinean agricultural products is explored by a questionnaire asking consumers to spontaneously name those ideas that come to their minds when thinking in Argentina, which Argentinean food and which regions of the country they know. Additionally, consumers are asked to rate their preferences for different aspects, such as place and frequency of purchase, place of consumption, information search during purchase, price, cost-performance ratio, products condition of purchase: packaging and freshness and production characteristics. Specifically for honey and red wine it is asked how ideal inherent product quality characteristics should be like. Finally three designations of origin were tested for attractiveness.
The trend detected so far seems to indicate that German consumers’ image of ideal beef nearly matches the one of Argentinean beef. Moreover they are prepared to pay a higher price for the beef they consume and would expect Argentinean beef to be more organically produced, with less hormones and genetic engineering. Also, German consumers stated that they would like to consume Argentinean beef more often.
Regarding red wine it is elucidated which typical Argentinean varieties are preferred by German consumers and where consumers mainly buy their ideal red wine. For honey it is clearly stated that Argentinean labelled honey has very little opportunities to be accepted. In the case of fruit in spite of 98% of Germans not preferring Argentinean fruit, half of the population admits to buy imported fruit when the season requires it.
Recommendations on how to promote Argentinean agricultural products, focusing on the German Market, are presented. For example, exporters should direct more attention to market beef emphasising its natural and healthy character adopting organic production schemes in spite of the resulting a higher priced product. Red Wine marketing efforts should focus on those varieties that are identified in this work to be highly demanded and reach the consumer only through the identified marketing channels.
Marketing the products with the denomination of origin “Made in der Pampa” is not recommended for the German market because of high rejection rates detected on the consumer side. In contrast products labelled with the terms “Made in Patagonien” or “Made in Feuerland” have a very good chance of entering the German market successfully because of being associated with adventure, exoticness, passion, virgin nature and animal welfare among others.
Keywords: Export, product image, consumer, marketing strategy, beef, Argentina, Germany, agricultural products
Contact Address: Rodrigo Lueg, University of Hohenheim, Institute of Farm Economics (410A), University of Hohenheim, 70593 Stuttgart, Germany, e-mail: realueg
uni-hohenheim.de
