Preferences of Consumers when Shopping for Regional Products

This paper presents partial results of research on consumer preferences when shopping for food. It is focused on the area of regional products and consumer preferences in relation to the country origin of food products. The results are based on questionnaire survey that was conducted within the period from October 2010 to January 2011 on a sample of 3767 respondents from the Czech Republic, via both online questionnaires and its printed version. The questionnaire system ReLa, developed by the Department of Marketing and Trade at the Faculty of Business and Economics, Mendel University in Brno, was used for the data collection. Data were processed with statistical software STATISTICA (Ver. 9). Preferences for food of Czech origin were analysed in relation to identification criteria. The research results show that the origin of food plays an important role in consumer purchase decision-making. Results of analysis of contingency proved no association between the variables - levels of preferences and gender or size of the towns of respondents' residence but a moderately strong degree of association between the selected values and respondents' occupation, age and education.