Liking of traditional cheese and consumer willingness to pay

We review herein the relevance of credence and sensory attributes for cheese liking as a basis for subsequent discussion on attributes related to traditional dairy products such as place of origin, process characteristics, etc. Several studies suggest that place of origin may have a positive impact on consumer eval- uation. In addition, protected designation of origin labels generally affects consumers’ pur- chasing decisions, with a premium price paid for traditional products. Some of the main dimensions of traditional food products are: familiarity of the product, processing through traditional recipes, sensory properties and ori- gins. However, different dimensions can be relevant for consumers of different countries. Southern European regions frequently tend to associate the concept of traditional with broad concepts such as heritage, culture or history; whereas central and northern European regions tend to focus mainly on practical issues such as convenience, health or appro- priateness. Sensitivity to traditional cheese attributes may also vary according to different groups of consumers with older, more educat- ed and wealthier subjects showing higher will- ingness to pay and acceptance levels. Given that sensory properties play a central role in product differentiation, we can conclude that information about credence attributes, if reli- able, positively perceived and directed to sensi- tive groups of consumers, is able to affect con- sumer liking and willingness to pay for tradi- tional cheese. Thus, it provides a further potential tool for product differentiation to small-scale traditional farms, where husbandry is often based on extensive rearing systems and production costs tend to be higher.