Rodrigo Lueg, Anna Maria Häring, Eckhard Benner: German Consumers Image towards Argentinian Agricultural Products -- An Approach to Develop New Products and Processes

Rodrigo Lueg, Anna Maria Häring, Eckhard Benner:
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

Argentinian Agricultural Products are mainly exported with low added value and without any brand. One of the most important destinies of Argentinian agricultural exports is the European market. Furthermore, Argentina has the second largest organic production area worldwide which is further expanding. Argentinian organic products tend to have more added value than conventional products through processing and marketing. The objective of this paper are:

$\begin{itemize*} \par\item{To explore if the European consumer has build an ima... ...nd add value by marketing strategies and processing. \par } \par\end{itemize*}$

The image of Argentinian agricultural products is explored by a questionnaire asking consumers about concepts, ideas, words and products that come to their mind when thinking in Argentina. Additionally, consumers are asked to rate their preferences for different quality aspects, such as environmental friendly production, chemical additives, free of child labour, fair trade, healthy etc. Results are related to German consumer statistics to see if they are representative and reflect the German consumer's behaviour. The trend detected so far seems to indicate that German consumers demand products free from chemicals and organic products. This could be a hint for the food export sector to direct more attention to organic products and marketing strategies emphasising the healthy character of Argentinian products. Recommendations on how to exploit the existing image of Argentinian agricultural products for marketing and communication strategies will be derived. This will contribute to the development of value-adding strategies for potentially marketable Argentinian agricultural products in Northern European markets and help to overcome the lack of information towards international markets in the underdeveloped Argentinian food export sector.

Keywords: Export, product image, consumer, marketing strategy, beef, Argentina, Germany, agricultural products

Footnotes

...P: Contact Address: Rodrigo Lueg, University of Hohenheim, Institute of Farm Economics (410A)University of Hohenheim, 70593 Stuttgart, Germany, e-mail: realueguni-hohenheim.de

Andreas Deininger, September 2004