The valuation and purchase of food products that combine local, regional and traditional features: The influence of consumer ethnocentrism

Previous literature has addressed the concepts of local products, regional products and traditional products as if they were independent concepts. However, in practice, many food products combine all three concepts. The objectives of this paper are as follows: first, to explore the valuation of food products that have local, regional and traditional features through the analysis of specific product categories; second, to study the possible link between the level of consumer ethnocentrism and the valuation and effective purchase of local-regional-traditional food. The results show that consumers value these products highly and buy them in high proportions. In addition, levels of consumer ethnocentrism are sometimes, but not always, related to the actual purchase of these localregional-traditional food products. This finding highlights the need to include a product's category in analyses of the effects of consumer ethnocentrism. The majority of previous studies examine the consumer's valuation and intention to buy local or traditional products at a general or abstract level, which does not allow respondents to evaluate a specific food product that they can find in the market and consume. An important contribution of this work is its level of analysis: we analyze specific food product categories in two different geographic environments in Spain.