Extrinsic and intrinsic quality cues in Chinese consumers’ purchase of pork ribs

• Quality cues in China: fat content, meat color, packaging, branding and quality certification.
• Intrinsic cues are still the main cues when Chinese consumers select meat.
• Extrinsic quality cues been adopted by a smaller group of shoppers.
• Four segments were distinguished based on their cue usage.

Due to the ongoing changes from traditional open markets to Western style supermarkets in China, Chinese consumers have the opportunity to base their decisions increasingly on extrinsic quality cues like brand, safety certification and origin, in addition to the traditional intrinsic quality cues like color and fat. This study investigates choice of fresh pork by Chinese consumers employing a pairwise choice methodology. Latent class analysis shows that for the majority of consumers intrinsic cues are still dominating the choice, and only for a small segment did information on brand, origin and quality certification have a major role. Also, there was a segment of consumers that did seem to make random choices. The results indicate that Chinese consumers are still in a transitory phase, where they are building up competencies in handling product information while the sector struggles to build credibility and trust.