Consumers' preferences and demand for culinary spices and herbs in Gauteng, South Africa

Abstract

Spices and herbs are plant materials or ready-to-use plant products with some medicinal and food flavoring properties. They are primarily used for therapeutic, aromatic and/or culinary purposes, in cosmetics, pharmaceutical, and food industries. Currently, growing knowledge on the health-enhancing properties of some spices and herbs have resulted in increase in their consumption. Therefore, this study sought to achieve the following objectives: to analyze the determinants of consumers’ preferences for the sources of spices and herbs, to analyze the determinants of consumption and utility choices for spices and herbs, to identify the socio-economic factors influencing consumers’ willingness to purchase culinary spices and herbs, to determine the factors influencing households’ demand for selected culinary spices and herbs, and to compute the price and income elasticities of households’ demand for culinary spices and herbs. Primary data were collected from the Gauteng province. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to choose the respondents. Gauteng was purposively selected for being the fastest growing province in terms of population size in South Africa. Data were collected from 385 respondents through administration of questionnaires. Multinomial logit regression model, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), logistic regression model and Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS) were utilized for data analyses. The results showed that most of the consumers (94%) between the ages of 27 and 37 years preferred imported spices, while 90% of the single respondents preferred imported spices. Spices from foreign sources were preferred by 84% of the respondents with tertiary education qualifications. The multinomial logistic regression results showed that compared to indifferent consumers, being married and concern for packaging increased the preference for local spices, while household size, gender, concern for product’s labeling and product’s attractiveness negatively influenced the preference for local spices. Also, compared indifferent consumers, the preference for imported spices was influenced by being married, household size, gender, concern for product’s attractiveness, and product’s availability. In addition, age, gender, household size and product’s attractiveness negatively influenced the preference for local herbs while concern for product’s attractiveness positively influenced the preference for local herbs. Being married, household size and gender negatively influenced the preference for imported herbs, while concern for product’s attractiveness showed negative influence. PCA was used to analyze the determinants of consumption utility choices for spices and herbs and the results showed that majority of the spices and herbs were viewed from their medicinal, aroma, weight management and health benefits. Furthermore, consumer utility from spices

was influenced by age, marital status, education level, gender, ethnicity, employment status as well as food expenditure. Similarly, herbs utility was also influenced by age, marital status, household size, ethnicity, gender, religion, food expenditure and employment status. Consumers’ utilization index for spices was influenced by sources of information such as newspapers, friends and family, radio and health awareness campaign influenced utilization for spices. Utilization index for herbs was influenced bysources of information such as radio, health practitioners, newspapers, television, and information from friends and family. The results further showed that the willingness to pay for spices was significantly influenced by age, household size, personal use of cumin, personal use of turmeric and the use of ginger in cooking meats. Willingness to pay for herbs was significantly influenced by marital status, average monthly income, number of years consuming herbs, the use of paprika in ready to use meals, the use of mint in ready to use meals, the use of vanilla in ready to use meals, the use of basil for meat and the use of origanum for personal use. The results of the QUAIDS model on the demand for spices and herbs showed that price and expenditure influenced demand for spices and herbs. Hot spices (-0.57) and aromatic spices (-0.19) emerged as price inelastic, while mild spices showed a positive but inelastic parameter (0.10) implying that it is a non-luxury good. Own-price elasticities for all herbs were negative, and cross-price elasticities revealed that all herb groups were complements. Based on these findings, the study recommends that policies that will improve production of spices and herbs in the country be developed to facilitate issues of consumption and marketing of spices and herbs. There is also a need to improve on educating the populace on the health benefits of spices and herbs to increase consumption.