Abstract
Communities in Southern Africa use native fruits to produce value-added goods like jam, juice, dried fruits, nuts, and alcoholic beverages. Despite these products being claimed as rich in nutrition, including vitamins and energy, they are still relatively underutilized due to low consumer awareness, poor distribution, thus, limited availability at mainstream retailers. To investigate this problem, this study was undertaken to assess consumer’ buying behaviour and awareness towards indigenous fruit value added products. The study was conducted in the four shopping centres of the Bushbuckridge local municipalities in the Mpumalanga Province, South Africa: Bushbuckridge Complex, Acornhoek Mall, Mkhuhlu Plaza and Thulamahashe Mall. The proportionate sampling technique was used to obtain the study sample size of 382 participants. A Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 29 was used to analyse data, along with descriptive statistics and a binary logistic regression model. The results indicated that 93.5% participants were aware, while 6.5% participants were not aware of the indigenous fruits value-added products in the study area. The results further revealed that Marula value-added products were the mostly purchased and consumed at 92.4% compared to the other indigenous value-added products. The binary logistic regression results reveals that the variables age and packaging had a significant influence on consumer’s awareness towards the indigenous fruits value-added products. The study recommends a heightened focus on improving the awareness of all indigenous fruits value-added products found in the study area.
Presenters
Danisile MthombeniSenior Lecturer, Agriculture and Animal Health, University of South Africa, Gauteng, South Africa
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
INDIGENOUS,FRUITS,VALUE-ADDED,AWARENESS,CONSUMERS,BUYING,BEHAVIOR
