Percepción del consumidor hacia los sellos de calidad: el caso del café.

Abstract

Coffee is one of the main sources of foreign exchange for developing countries. Mexico accounts for only 2.68% of the world coffee production, but this product is the most important source of foreign exchange in the Mexican agricultural sector. The Mexican coffee production traditions began to be recognized only in recent years, thanks to which Mexican coffee can use now the following labels: Denomination of Origin, Fair Trade and Organic Coffee. However, Mexico is not considered an important consumer of coffee, despite the increase of its consumption in recent years. The aim of this work was to analyse the perceptions of Mexican coffee consumers regarding quality labels. Six hundred questionnaires based on the Food Choice Questionnaire were applied, and analysed the results using factor and cluster analysis, comparing socio-economic aspects, consumption characteristics and knowledge of quality labels. Three groups of consumers were identified: Indifferent, Pragmatic and Hedonic-Dependent. Coffee consumers are mostly young, middle-aged, single, childless and college educated. Their interest in attending coffee shops is to socialize; they are ignorant of quality labels and are not interested in them, which have negative implications for the use of this type of labels in Mexico.