A kernel based method for discovering market segments in beef meat

In this paper we propose a method for learning the reasons why groups of consumers prefer some food products instead of others. We emphasize the role of groups given that, from a practical point of view, they may represent market segments that demand different products. Our method starts representing people's preferences in a metric space; there we are able to define a kernel based similarity function that allows a clustering algorithm to discover significant groups of consumers with homogeneous tastes. Finally in each cluster, we learn, with a SVM, a function that explains the tastes of the consumers grouped in the cluster. To illustrate our method, a real case of consumers of beef meat was studied. The panel was formed by 171 people who rated 303 samples of meat from 101 animals with 3 different aging periods.