Do Seed Companies Know Local End-Users Expectations? Findings from Mini Cucumbers in Iran

The aim of this paper is to highlight the effect end-users of vegetables have on seed companies and to provide a model to analyze these expectations. Increasingly, seeds are traded across borders. While international companies often consider the growers expectations, local consumers are often ignored. Although consumers' expectations shape buying behaviours, often they are non-verbal and hard to know. Knowing these expectations may be advantageous for seed companies in several ways: (1) they can adjust their strategies and products to meet consumers' needs; (2) if expectations are acquired and applied quickly, it may provide a competitive advantage; and (3) it can enhance companies' attractiveness among end-users and increase their bargaining power vis-a-vis immediate downstream customers in the value chain. In this paper, we extract the main players' expectations in a mini cucumber value chain using the free association method. We then rank order these expectations applying Friedman's test. Finally, we analyze the expectations with a hedonic/utilitarian approach and provide a means for upstream seed companies to have a better understanding of end users' expectations.