How consumers choose olive oil: The importance of origin cues

This study investigates quality cues to explore the importance of origin attributes in the choice of olive oil by consumers in two countries: Tunisia and France (n = 245). We used best-worst scaling and latent class analysis to obtain consumer clusters. The results emphasize the importance of origin cues in consumer choice and identify three latent segments in both countries: "official cues", "sensory cues", and "origin cues". French consumers tend to choose olive oil based on official signals, while Tunisian consumers mainly use origin and sensory cues. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.