Consumer interest towards tropical fruit: factors affecting avocado fruit consumption in Italy

The purpose of this paper is to identify the main factors affecting the consumption of avocado fruit among Italian consumers. In order to respond to the aim of the study, an empirical survey was conducted through the submission of an online questionnaire to 327 consumers. An ordered logit econometric model was adopted to examine the relationship among some explanatory variables and the frequency of consumption of avocado fruit. The findings of this study show that the consumption of avocado fruit is affected by different factors, including fruit consumption habit, neophilia attitudes, and various intrinsic and extrinsic quality attributes (credence attributes in particular). The study deals with a little explored topic; therefore, the findings contribute to fill the gap in the existent literature, inasmuch as they enrich the discussion on consumers’ preference for avocado fruit. However, further comparative research is clearly needed, as well as a larger research sample, to overcome limits to the external validity of the results and to investigate the analytical effort proposed in this article. © 2017, The Author(s).