Consumers Preferences For Rice Attributes In Dar-Es-Salaam City Of Tanzania

ABSTRACT

As the marketing process becomes more complex and competitive in a globalized market, affluent rice consumers have more power to demand for specific attributes, especially in terms of quality which is defined by attributes of rice, health and safety. Hence, understanding consumers’ preference for rice attributes becomes very important particularly for locally produced rice. Such understand will enable farmers and other actors along the rice value chain to improve rice quality in order to suit consumers’ needs and therefore enhance marketability. This research was carried out to establish consumers’ preference for rice attributes that define the quality of rice in Dar-es-salaam city where most of rice is consumed in Tanzania. The specific objectives were: to provide an overview of the rice marketing structure and analyze different varieties of rice sold in market places, to explore rice attributes which enhance consumers’ demand for specific rice varieties and to assess consumers’ willingness to pay a premium price for desired rice attributes. Data were collected from April to May 2014. The sample was picked from twelve markets, which include seven local markets and five supermarkets in the Dar-es-salaam city of Tanzania. For the market survey, 152 rice consumers were selected randomly for an interview. Data analysis was done using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software, version 16.0 and Stata using conjoint and rank-ordered logistic regression respectively. The results established that, aromatic attributes highly influenced consumers’ decision to purchase a certain rice variety, followed by cleanness, origin, price and proportion of breakage. Consumers were willing to pay a higher price for desired attributes.