General image and attribute perceptions of traditional food in six European countries

This paper studies the image of traditional food at pan-European and national levels in six countries: Belgium, France, Italy, Norway, Poland and Spain. A consumer survey about traditional food products (TFP) was conducted. The respondents (n = 4828) indicated their personal general opinion and feelings about TFP and characterised TFP according to 15 intrinsic and extrinsic product attributes. Traditional food is found to have a unanimously positive general image across Europe. The main patterns of product attribute perceptions are coherent in the six countries. The results show that European consumers trade-off the relative expensiveness and time-consuming preparation of traditional food for the specific taste, quality, appearance, nutritional value, healthiness and safety they find in TFP. Further, the general image of TFP relates to attributes typical of a festive consumption of traditional foods rather than a consumption of daily character. The implications of our findings for the future market of traditional food are discussed.