Preference structure for lamb meat consumers. A Spanish case study.

There is a current tendency in the European Union member countries to cut down on meat consumption. This tendency is not due as much to the traditional income-price factor, but to other attributes whose influence is gaining relative importance. Some of them are: quality, image, health, food safety and changes in people's taste. In addition, the relative importance of different attributes valued by the consumer must be weighed in order to develop marketing strategies which increase lamb meat consumption. In order to determine these preferences, 400 consumers were asked to evaluate different attributes (price, certification, origin, and commercial type) of lamb meat. Results obtained by means of conjoint analysis techniques show that regular consumers as well as occasional ones show a preference for lamb meat type. In this sense, a market share simulation of preferred (suckling and "ternasco") types proved that regular consumers generally prefer suckling lamb to "ternasco" lamb when both are from Castilla-La Mancha.