Consumer preference analysis and willingness to pay for artisanal produced corn tostadas in southern Mexico
Submitted: 2024-12-18
|Accepted: 2026-01-19
|Published: 2026-06-26
Copyright (c) 2026 Valeria Martínez-Aquino, Heidy M. Zarate-Trujillo, Ariadna I. Barrera-Rodríguez, Anastacio Espejel-García
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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Keywords:
Tortillas, traditional foods, discrete choice experiments, psychological meanings
Supporting agencies:
The authors express their gratitude to the individuals who participated in this study by completing the surveys, and to the Universidad Autónoma Chapingo for the financial support granted. The authors also thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and constructive suggestions that greatly contributed to strengthening the manuscript.
Abstract:
Tortillas are a representative element of the Mexican diet; in the south of Mexico, corn tortillas called tostadas are handmade. Discrete choice and psychological salience experiments were used to evaluate consumer behavior. Consumers prefer artisanal, healthy and natural tostadas and are willing to pay a premium price for them. Two consumer segments were identified: “Presentation Observers” and “Healthy Lovers”. There was no statistical difference between the symbolic and utilitarian psychological meanings. The representative utilitarian meanings were taste, appearance, dishes and pairing; and the symbolic meanings: appetence, process, hedonism and tradition.
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