Understanding Apple Attribute Preferences of US Consumers

Understanding Apple Attribute Preferences of US Consumers: Comparison

Please note this is a comparison between Version 1 by Meike Rombach and Version 6 by Jessie Wu.

Fresh apples are a commonly consumed and widely available product in food markets around the world.

US consumers
apple
attitude

1. Introduction

Apples as a horticultural consumer good are comprised of various product attributes, some of which may have varying levels of importance for consumers. Relevant consumer attributes possessed by fresh apples include the colour of the skin, shape, aroma, apple variety, texture and the length of their shelf life ^[1][2][3][4][15,16,17,18]. This latter attribute is particularly important, as even though apples have good storing qualities, they are ultimately perishable ^[5][6][7][19,20,21]. Colour and appearance are crucial in retail situations as they attract the consumer’s attention. Colour often serves as a cue for fruit quality; consumers commonly attempt to estimate the texture of apples as this gives them an indication of the taste ^[8][22]. Extant literature in this area classifies consumers into two main categories: those who prefer firmness, juiciness, and bit of acidity in apples, and those that who like sweeter, but less firm apples ^[9][23]. In addition to these product attributes which are inherent to the apple (intrinsic attributes), consumers are also interested in commercial attributes, such as price, packaging, branding, country of origin, and sustainability ^[10][11][12][24,25,26]. These are linked to the production, distribution, and presentation of apples (extrinsic attributes) ^{[13][14][15][16][17]}[27,28,29,30,31]. Although early studies on horticultural and agricultural products have emphasised the importance of intrinsic attributes for consumers, more recent studies show that for agricultural and horticultural products external attributes are equally important for consumers ^{[18][19][20][21][22]}[2,32,33,34,35]. Consumer choices regarding apple attributes, as well as the willingness to pay for fresh or processed apple products has been intensively studied in the US ^[23][24][25][12,36,37]; Consumer choice relies on a trade off between bundles of intrinsic and extrinsic product attribute; these include aspects of consumers personal backgrounds, including their sensory preferences and attitudes ^[26][38]. However, key-factors which lead to the determination of apple preferences are not as widely studied. In the following sub sections these factors are explained in more detail as they underpin the conceptual framework for this study. US consumers’ objective and subjective knowledge, as well as their sociodemographic backgrounds, their discernment as a buyer and their attitudes towards apple growers are likely to be key factors in determining the importance that US consumers place on physical and commercial apple attributes.

2. Apple Buyer Discernment

For the US food retail industry, as well as for the horticultural industry, it is important to know consumer preferences for new and existing varieties, as well as their ability to distinguish varieties ^[27][52]. This allows businesses to offer products that consumers need and want, and enables marketers to differentiate their products from existing ones. Very few studies have focused on the perception of apple varieties and the ability of consumers to distinguish them ^[27][52]. Studies which have shown that consumers are necessarily able to distinguish apple varieties have found that mostly neophobia or neophilia determines preference or aversion towards new apple varieties ^[23][27][12,52]. In the US, new varieties are often termed as club varieties ^[23][12]. Club varieties are subject to patent-protection. Growers who are part of the club have exclusive rights to produce and market the club variety as stipulated by a licensing contract. This includes both fruit quality and quantity ^[28][55]. Common examples of club varieties on the US market are ‘Jazz™’, ‘SnowSweet^®’, ‘Sweet Sixteen’, ‘SweeTango^®’, ‘Zestar!™’, and ‘Pink Lady^®’ ^[23][12]. Examples of more traditional varieties are ‘Red’ and ‘Golden Delicious’, ‘Granny Smith’, ‘Fuji’, ‘Honeycrisp’, ‘McIntosh’, ‘Cripps Pink’ ^[29][13]. Given that the majority of consumers do not possess a good varietal knowledge, marketing promotions, such as tasting experiences which offer free samples coupled with promotional materials regarding varietals are crucial to improve the ability of consumers to distinguish amongst different varieties ^[28][55].

3. Current Insight on Apple Attribute Preferences of US Consumers

The descriptive statistics of the sample are displayed in Table 1. The median respondent was aged between 25 and 34 years, had obtained a bachelor degree, and earned an annual pre-tax income ranging between USD 25,000 to USD 50,000 per year. Additionally, the other scale measured in the model was the objective apple knowledge score, which had a mean of 1.02, a range of between −4 to +5, and a standard deviation of 1.834.

Table 1. Sample description.

	Freq	%
Age
Under 21	2	0.5

The measurement model assessment included the use of reliability to test the model constructs, as well as the use convergent and discriminant validity to conduct further checks. All items achieved a factor loading of well above the minimum of 0.4, indicating their suitable contribution to the scale (see Table 2). Reliability was confirmed by both the Cronbach Alpha and composite reliability scores being above 0.6. Convergent validity was also indicated by AVE scores being higher than 0.5 for all the scales. Given that all indicators were within acceptable ranges, the requirements of construct reliability and validity were considered satisfactory ^[30][61].

Table 2.

Scale loadings, reliabilities, and convergent validity.

Scales and Items	Factor Loadings	Cronbach’s Alpha	Composite Reliability	Average Variance Extracted
Discerning Apple Buyer		0.836

Both the Fornell–Larker criterion and Heterotrait–Monotrait (HTMT) ratios were utilized to test discriminant validity, with the requirements for discriminant validity being met for all of the variable constructs (see Table 3). The square root of each constructs’ AVE was found to be higher than its correlation with other constructs. HTMT ratios are all less than 0.90, with the exception of the HTMT ratio between the importance placed on physical apple attributes and the importance placed on commercial apple attributes (1), which is a higher ratio than that which is recommended. However, this does not represent a problem because the two constructs both measure the apple attribute importance, with one construct being intrinsic and the other extrinsic to the product. Additionally, the largest VIF was 1.338 and the average VIF was 1.158, indicating that there were no problems with multicollinearity ^[31][58].

Table 3.

Scale discriminant validity.

Fornell–Larcker Criterion	Discerning Apple Buyer	Importance of Apple Commercial Attributes	Importance of Apple Physical Attributes	Attitudes towards US Apple Growers	Subjective Apple Knowledge
0.877	0.504
Discerning Apple Buyer	0.710
H1a: Objective Apple Knowledge -> Discerning Apple Buyer	−0.008	0.191	0.848
How similar are Pink Lady and Cosmic Crisp	0.741
Importance of Apple Commercial Attributes	0.638	0.726
H1b: Subjective Apple Knowledge -> Discerning Apple Buyer		0.456	11.929	0.000	21–24	16	4.2		How similar are Granny Smith and Royal Gala	0.731

Importance of Apple Physical Attributes	0.571	0.719	0.737
H2a: Gender -> Discerning Apple Buyer	−0.027	0.627	0.530	25–34	215	How similar are Pink Lady and Cripps Pink56.1	✓	0.940
0.706	0.503
0.476	0.501
H2b: Age -> Discerning Apple Buyer	0.743		−0.077	1.773	0.076	35–44	104	27.2
How similar are McIntosh and Braeburn	0.749
Subjective Apple Knowledge	0.484	0.426	0.360	0.548	0.839
H2c: Education -> Discerning Apple Buyer	0.068	1.511	0.131	45–54	27	7.0		How similar are Zestar! and Sweet Tango
0.718
Heterotrait–Monotrait Ratio

H2d: Income -> Discerning Apple Buyer	−0.054	1.206	0.228	55–64	14	3.7
How similar are Fuji and Red Delicious	0.639
Discerning Apple Buyer

H3a: Objective Apple Knowledge -> My Attitudes towards US Apple Growers	−0.086	2.133	0.033	65+	5	1.3
How similar are Red Delicious and Golden Delicious
Importance of Apple Commercial Attributes	0.680
0.831					Total	383	100
Importance of Apple Commercial Attributes		0.701	0.817	0.527
Importance of Apple Physical Attributes	0.713	1
H3b: Subjective Apple Knowledge -> My Attitudes towards US Apple Growers	0.536	10.553	0.000
H4a: Gender -> My Attitudes towards US Apple Growers			−0.006	0.129	0.898	Education
Importance of—Price	0.702
H4b: Age -> My Attitudes towards US Apple Growers	0.031Did not finish high school	6	1.6
0.729	0.466	Importance of—Labelled as sustainable	0.719				Finished high school	46	12.0
Importance of—Labelled as traditional varieties such as Royal Gala, Braeburn, Granny Smith	0.735
Attitudes towards US Apple Growers
Attitudes towards US Apple Growers	0.588	0.614	0.618
H4c: Education -> My Attitudes towards US Apple Growers	0.126	2.134	0.033
Importance of—Labelled as club apples such as Pink lady or Cosmic Crisp	0.747
Importance of Apple Physical Attributes		0.723	0.825	0.543
Importance of—Colour of the skin is true to variety	0.773
Subjective Apple Knowledge	0.566	0.546
H4d: Income -> My Attitudes towards US Apple Growers	0.005	0.140	0.889	Attended University	40	10.4
H5: Discerning Apple Buyer -> Importance of Apple Physical Attributes	0.428	7.142	0.000	Bachelors Degree	223
H6: My Attitudes towards US Apple Growers -> Importance of Apple Physical Attributes	0.286	58.2	✓	0.927
4.776	0.000	Postgraduate Degree	68	17.8
H7: Discerning Apple Buyer -> Importance of Apple Commercial Attributes	0.534	9.267	0.000	Total	383	100
Importance of—Smell is appealing	0.700
H8: My Attitudes towards US Apple Growers -> Importance of Apple Commercial Attributes	0.208	3.586	0.000	Household Annual Income
Importance of—Texture is soft
0.793				USD 0 to 24,999	80	20.9
Importance of—Skin is free of visual blemishes	0.673		USD 25,000 to 49,999	117	30.5	✓	1.141

My Attitudes towards US Apple Growers		0.836	0.880	0.552	USD 50,000 to 74,999	119	31.1
I think that US growers have a longstanding tradition and lots of experience in growing sustainable apples.	0.728				USD 75,000 to 99,999	40	10.4
I think that US apple growers contribute to the care and maintenance of the landscape	0.678				USD 100,000 or higher	27	7.0
0.417	0.635
I think that US apple growers make active contributions to preserve biodiversity	0.841			Total	383	100
	Gender
Male	196
I think that US apple growers treat land resources responsible	0.707

I think that social pressure on apple growers should be increased as they are main agents of climate change.	0.665	51.2	✓	0.501
I think that US apple growers are environmental conscious	0.821				Female	187
Subjective Apple Knowledge		48.8
Total	383	100
US Geographical Distribution
0.860	0.905	0.704
I understand a lot about apples	0.821				North-East
I am confident in my knowledge of apples	0.810				83
Among my friends I am the apple expert	0.882	21.7
			Mid-West	133	34.8
I know more about apples than others do	0.841			South	90	23.5
West	77	20.1
Total	383	100

The conceptual framework and its overall structure was tested, resulting in a Goodness of Fit of 0.43 and a Normed Fit Index of 0.676. A Standardised Root Mean Square Residual of 0.074 was also achieved, and this indicated that adequacy of the overall model fit. The explanatory and predictive power of the conceptual model was also tested, and this resulted in average R²/Q² values of 0.349/0.293, which indicates that the model has overall weak/moderate explanatory power and moderate predictive relevance. However, some parts of the model were found to be stronger than other parts. The R²/Q² scores of 0.248/0.336 for discerning apple buyers would be considered weak in their explanatory power and moderate in their predictive relevance, but the score of 0.440/0.216 for importance placed on commercial apple attributes, and 0.388/0.247 for importance placed on physical apple attributes indicate weak/moderate levels of explanatory power and small predictive relevance. The score of 0.321/0.372 for attitudes towards US growers would be considered to have moderate explanatory power and medium predictive relevance. The structure of the model was confirmed to be fit for hypothesis testing due to the adequate model fit, the weak to moderate explanatory power, and the weak to medium predictive accuracy. Table 4 and Figure 12 show the results of the hypothesis testing.

Figure 12.

Results of the conceptual model.

Table 4.

Path coefficients and hypothesis testing results.

Hypothesised Relationship	Coefficient	T Stat	p	Value

Bold = p < 0.05. The subjective knowledge was the most important factor determining the discernment of buyers and attitudes towards US growers. Objective knowledge was not found to have any impact, while only education as a sociodemographic factor had impact. The discernment as a buyer and the ability to distinguish apple varieties had the greatest impact on the importance that US consumers placed on apple attributes. Additionally, attitudes towards growers impacted the importance consumers placed on intrinsic and extrinsic apple attributes.

Bold = p < 0.05.

The subjective knowledge was the most important factor determining the discernment of buyers and attitudes towards US growers. Objective knowledge was not found to have any impact, while only education as a sociodemographic factor had impact. The discernment as a buyer and the ability to distinguish apple varieties had the greatest impact on the importance that US consumers placed on apple attributes. Additionally, attitudes towards growers impacted the importance consumers placed on intrinsic and extrinsic apple attributes.