Bio-based and Applied Economics 10(1): 35-49, 2021 | e-ISSN 2280-6172 | DOI: 10.36253/bae-9909 B i o - b a s e d a n d A p p l i e d E c o n o m i c s BAE Copyright: © 2021 N.I. Sampalean, D. Rama, G. Visentin. Open access, article published by Firenze University Press under CC-BY-4.0 License. Firenze University Press | www.fupress.com/bae Citation: N.I. Sampalean, D. Rama, G. Visentin (2021) An investigation into Ital- ian consumers’ awareness, perception, knowledge of European Union quality certifications, and consumption of agri- food products carrying those certifica- tions. Bio-based and Applied Econom- ics 10(1): 35-49. doi: 10.36253/bae-9909 Accepted: April 14, 2021 Published: July 28, 2021 Competing Interests: The Author(s) declare(s) no conflict of interest. Editor: Fabio Gaetano Santeramo. ORCID NIS: 0000-0002-9222-2828 DR: 0000-0002-4207-8338 GV: 0000-0003-0869-5516 An investigation into Italian consumers’ awareness, perception, knowledge of European Union quality certifications, and consumption of agri-food products carrying those certifications Niculina Iudita Sampalean1, Daniele Rama1, Giulio Visentin2 1 Department of Agri-Food Economics, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, via Milano, 24, 26100, Cremona (CR), Italy. E-mail: daniele.rama@unicatt.it 2 Department of Veterinary Medical Sciences, Alma Mater Studiorum- University of Bolo- gna, Via Tolara di Sopra 50, 40064,  Ozzano dell’Emilia (BO), Italy. E-mail: giulio.visen- tin@unibo.it Corresponding author: Niculina Iudita Sampalean. E-mail: niculinaiudita.sampalean@ unicatt.it Abstract. The present study investigated Italian consumers’ awareness, perception, knowledge of European Union (EU) quality certifications: Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), Protected Geographical Indication (PGI), Traditional Specialty Guar- anteed (TSG), and organic as well as the consumption of agri-food products carrying those certifications. A total of 212 consumers responsible for food purchases took part in a web-based survey between June and December 2019, inclusive. Descriptive sta- tistics were calculated in relation to the data collected, followed by a factor analysis to reduce data dimensionality, and a cluster analysis on the latent variables generated, to identify similarities and differences among respondents. Awareness, perception, knowl- edge and consumption of agri-food products carrying EU quality labels has increased among consumers in recent years. The results related to the consumer’s knowledge of quality-certified products showed that more than half of respondents were able to spontaneously quote examples of PDO (76%), PGI (56%) and organic food products (73%) while only 33% of participants could name at least one TSG product. The gener- al awareness of the guarantees offered by PDO and PGI certifications was also assessed in relation to production processes, the natural and human factors of a particular envi- ronment and the reputation and quality of a particular region. Cluster analysis showed that consumers with the highest education were most likely to value EU quality certi- fications and support their local economies. The information obtained have practical implications for marketing and communication of European certified food products at national and international level. Keywords: factor analysis, cluster analysis, food labels, knowledge evolution, Europe- an quality certifications. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode 36 Bio-based and Applied Economics 10(1): 36-49, 2021 | e-ISSN 2280-6172 | DOI: 10.36253/bae-9909 Niculina Iudita Sampalean, Daniele Rama, Giulio Visentin 1. INTRODUCTION European quality certification was first introduced with Regulation (EEC) No 2081/92, which was subse- quently repealed by Regulation (EC) No 510/2006, fol- lowed by Regulation (EU) No 1151/2012. Such regula- tions define three key labels of product quality, namely: Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), Protected Geo- graphical Indication (PGI), and Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG). PDO are products originating in a specific place, region or in a country, whose quality or characteristics are essentially or exclusively due to a particular geo- graphical environment with its inherent natural and human factors and whose all production steps take place in the defined geographical area. PGI products are originating in a specific place, region or country, whose given quality, reputation or other characteristic is essentially attributable to its geo- graphical origin and whose have at least one of the pro- duction steps taken place in the defined geographical area. Finally, TSG are products or foodstuff that results from a mode of production, processing or composition corresponding to traditional practice for that product or foodstuff or is produced from raw materials or ingredi- ents that are those traditionally used. The main differences among them are related to the number of production steps that are involved in the defined geographical area, the raw materials used and the way the product is made. The quality policy aims to protect the names of specific products to promote their unique characteristics which are associated with their geographical origin, as well as their traditional know- how. The EU quality recognition enables consumers to trust and identify quality products while also helping producers to trade on the added value markets and avoid free riding. Moreover, these formal certifications help food products to be more competitive in the global mar- ket (Carbone, 2018). The European Parliament and Council have also established quality certifications for organic agri-food products (Regulation (EU) No 2018/848). According to this regulation the organic products were developed to respond to a specific market in which consumers were demanding for products whose production’s promotes environmental protection and animal welfare, maintains the biodiversity of Europe, contributes to rural devel- opment.The distribution of quality-certified products across Europe is not homogeneous, as more than 70% of the total products originate from only five countries, including Italy (21%) , France (17%), Spain (14%), Portu- gal (10%) and Greece (8%) (EU Commission, 2019). As for consumers perception of these products and their characteristics the distribution is varying (Profeta et al., 2010). Indeed, Aprile and Gallina (2008) reported a level of awareness of 30% with regard to PDO, PGI and STG labels among Italian consumers, whereas Verbeke et al. (2012) observed that 23% of the Italian respondents were aware of the PDO certification, 38% were familiar with the PGI certification and 22% recognized the TSG certification. In Northern European countries, consum- ers’ awareness of quality recognition is generally low (Jordana, 2000; Profeta et al., 2010; Vanhonacker et al., 2010) but is increasing, as these products seem to cap- ture new segments on the market (European Commis- sion, 2018). In countries specialized in the production of qual- ity-certified food, PDO/PGI labels are reported to be important and play a role in the consumers’ decision- making process as well as on their willingness to pay, as these products have a favourable image (Scarpa and Del Giudice, 2004; van Ittersum et al., 2007, Vecchio and Annunziata, 2011), however, other studies (Platania and Privitiera, 2006; Grunert and Aachmann, 2016) have reported evidence to the contrary. Although the PDO/ PGI labels appeared to be important, Aprile et al. (2016) observed that only a small proportion of consumers was able to correctly associate PDO/PGI/organic farming characteristics to their respective labels. However, the organic farming label seemed to be more widely recog- nized among EU consumers, irrespective of their own national level of food quality specialization (European Commission, 2018). The simultaneous investigation of perception, aware- ness, understanding, knowledge, decision-making and consumption of the European quality certifications was often hampered by the limited sample size, as well as the difficulty in retrieving information from the consumers’ questionnaire. Indeed, many of the studies concentrated primarily on one aspect, with the majority focusing on the decision-making process, measured generally using the conjoint analysis (Krystallis and Ness, 2005; Mesias et al., 2005; Capelli et al., 2014). To the authors’ knowl- edge, no research conducted among Italian consumers has ever attempted to determine all those aspects in one single study. Another important issue was the often lim- ited geographical distribution of the sample of respond- ents collected, which was primarily restricted to the main cities or to certain provinces (Van der Lans et al., 2001; Arfini and Pazzona, 2014; Ceschi et al., 2018). We focused our research on the last EU Regulation’ (No 1151/2012) main objective (‘’to help producers of agricultural products and foodstuffs to communicate the 37 Bio-based and Applied Economics 10(1): 37-49, 2021 | e-ISSN 2280-6172 | DOI: 10.36253/bae-9909 An investigation into Italian consumers’ awareness, perception, knowledge of European Union quality certifications product characteristics and farming attributes of those products and foodstuffs to buyers and consumers’’) and tried to study if this goal was reached, if this regulation can be considered a proper tool in communicating those food’s attributes to consumers, or if EU should find a better suited solution. For our study’ objective we consid- ered consumers perception, awareness, knowledge, and consumption of the PDO/PGI/TSG being the best way to measure the regulation objective’s accomplishment. Given this, an overview of the past and current situ- ation was required to understand whether there was any positive change in the consumers attitudes towards these certifications. Confirmation of the existence of a real evolution will help prove the effectiveness and efficiency of PDO/ PGI/TSG certifications as a marketing tool, therefore the EU Regulation (No 1151/2021) could be considered suc- cessful, reaching one of its main objectives. New policies and communication efforts could be used to enhance consumers’ curiosity in relation to products that are PDO/PG/TSG/organic certified. 2. MATERIAL AND METHODS 2.1 The survey Between June and December 2019, a convenience sample made of 312 consumers across Italy replied to the web-based survey, formulated to conduct the cur- rent research. Of these, only 212 declared that they were responsible for the food purchases in the house- hold, therefore, only these 212 consumers were invited to complete the whole questionnaire. The survey aimed to examine European quality certifications, to under- stand whether they were recognized by the consumers (awareness), whether the consumers perceive the guar- antees offered by the PDO/PGI/TSG, Organic certifica- tions (perception), approved their use (knowledge) and whether they played a role in consumers’ buying deci- sion process, thereby establishing whether these certifi- cations truly had an impact on the purchasing decision (consumption). Another purpose of the questionnaire was to verify whether the market is stratified into differ- ent consumer categories with different attitudes towards the certifications, the final goal being to suggest differ- ent solutions for their promotion and valorisation. The questionnaire1 was created in conjunction with the lit- erature on consumer behaviour relating to typical foods and food labelling. Initially, a pilot test (n=20) was per- formed to ensure that the formulated questions were 1 The questionnaire is available upon request. clear and understandable for consumers. Should a ques- tion be regarded as unclear, this was revised and modi- fied accordingly for the final questionnaire. The final questionnaire was sub-divided into six sec- tions, addressing specific issues as following: i) the first section (one question) contained the filter question, as the survey was designed for those responsi- ble for the food purchases for the family. The answer to this question was a dummy variable, indicating whether the respondent was (i.e.,1) or not (i.e., 0) responsible for the household food purchasing. If the participant was not responsible for food pur- chases in the household, he/she would be redirected to the last section, where he/she would complete only the socio-demographic questions. ii) the second section (4 questions) examined con- sumers’ perception of food quality and safety, the importance of the EU quality certifications and other different food characteristics when choosing a food product, the significance of the food label and consum- ers’ feelings towards food law compliance and different production types and techniques. Five-point Likert scale question were used in this section, with 1 corresponding to ‘’Not at all’’ and 5 to ‘’Very Important’’. iii) the third section (8 questions) covered consum- ers’ awareness and knowledge of the EU quality cer- tificates (PDO/PGI/TSG) and the organic certificate, attempting to identify the main differences between the PDO/PGI/TSG and organic products, and conventional products. In this section multiple image choice ques- tions was used when respondents had to choose which of the shown logos they knew, and multiple choice ques- tions when they had to select the right definitions of the EU quality certifications. Also, the previously used five- point Likert scale question was used (1= ‘’Not at all’’ and 5= ‘’Very Important’’). iv) the fourth section (12 questions) analysed con- sumers’, knowledge and consumption of EU quality-cer- tified products as well as organic products. Each of these quality labels was again analysed separately. Here three- point Likert scale questions were used (No=0, Yes=1, Maybe=2). In order to test their knowledge, the partici- pants were asked to give some examples of each of these types of products. In addition, in order to establish their consumption of products baring these certification they were asked for examples of the last PDO/PGI/TSG and organic products they had bought during the last three months. For this purpose, open-ended questions were used in all the above cases. v) the fifth section (16 questions) consisted of an analysis of 16 Provolone Dolce cards, with different combinations of various characteristics, thereby collect- 38 Bio-based and Applied Economics 10(1): 38-49, 2021 | e-ISSN 2280-6172 | DOI: 10.36253/bae-9909 Niculina Iudita Sampalean, Daniele Rama, Giulio Visentin ing the data needed for a conjoint analysis; however, this will not be considered further in the present study but will form part of an alternative ongoing project. vi) the sixth section (10 questions) used demograph- ic questions to cover the socio-demographic aspects of the respondents; the formulated questions evaluated the participants’ city and area of residence, sex, age, number of family members, education level, job, civil status, and annual income. The questionnaire was distributed online, and was shared on Facebook pages and groups, LinkedIn, What- sApp, Messenger, as well as on certain cooking blogs. Therefore, the actual number of people viewing the sur- vey is unknown, however, the total number of respond- ents is reported above. 2.2 Statistical analysis Descriptive statistics were calculated in relation to the data collected between the second and the sixth sec- tions of results, using a basic script in Python (Python Software Foundation, ver. 3.6). The software IBM SPSS Statistics (ver. 24.0, IBM Corp., Armonk, NY) was employed to conduct multivariate statistical analysis within a multiple-step framework. In the first step, we carried out a factorial analysis in order to reduce the dimensionality of the data collected into a smaller set of key factors, that would be easier to explain. The variables covered in the analysis focused on different food charac- teristics at the point of purchase, the importance of dif- ferent safety and quality food characteristics, attitudes towards EU quality-certified products, the perception of law compliance, production types and techniques, as well as the attention given to various information on the label. A 5-point Likert scale was used to measure all the vari- ables included in the factor analysis. The optimal num- ber of latent variables selected for the subsequent analy- ses was chosen, based on the lowest number of compo- nents with associated eigenvalues greater than 1 (Kaiser, 1960) and based on the proportion of the total variance explained by the retained factors of at least 50%. In the second step, a cluster analysis was applied to the latent variables previously generated and selected with the aim of organizing the respondents into homogenous groups. Prior to the cluster analysis, data were processed with the agglomerative hierarchical procedure. According to Ward’s criterion of aggregation, 10 iterations with mobile centres were completed. Based on a visual inspection of the generated dendrogram, the optimal number of clus- ters to specify in the K-means method was set at 4. This type of analysis applied Euclidean distance to define sim- ilarities and differences within the clusters. 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Description of the sample The results reporting the socio-demographic aspects of the sample used in the present study, are depicted in Table 1. The sample analysed in the present study may not be completely representative of the Italian population as the criteria that was used for the sampling is convenience. There is an over-representation of women and younger respondents, with 48% of the sample aged between 18 and 35 years old, that may be because the questionnaire was distributed online, and the population tends to not have access to the Internet or computer skills. 64% of the respondents were women and this over-representation can be explained by the fact that our respondents needed to be responsible for the food purchases in their house- hold, and women, generally, have that responsibility. More than 70% of the respondents had at least a bachelor’s degree, with 11% having a PhD. Having this highly-educated sample can be explained by the meth- od used to administer the questionnaire. Moreover, the North-Eastern region of the country is also overrepre- sented (52%). This can be explained as the questionnaire was disseminated with the social network of the authors , so it may have inflated the number of respondents from a limited geographical area. The most popular occupations were office work- er (37%), freelancer (14%), student (14%) and house- wife (8%). The 17% declared an annual income less than 10,000 € while 12% declared an income greater than 40,000 €. The non-representativeness of our sam- ple might have some influence on the final results. For example, the women over-representation could have gen- erated greater results, as found by Dekhili et al. (2011), or contrary could have shown lower ones as sometimes men presented better knowledge of these certifications (Verbeke et  al., 2012). These both same studies shown that older groups of people have a higher awareness and use of the EU quality certifications. As in our sample the older groups were underrepresented (45-70 years old) we believe this could result in lower outcomes. Having a higher educated sample might have introduced some bias as it is expected that the higher the education level, the higher the knowledge resulting in a more positive attitude towards these certifications. 3.2 Awareness and knowledge of European quality certifica- tions In the third section of the questionnaire (aware- ness and knowledge) the consumers were shown four 39 Bio-based and Applied Economics 10(1): 39-49, 2021 | e-ISSN 2280-6172 | DOI: 10.36253/bae-9909 An investigation into Italian consumers’ awareness, perception, knowledge of European Union quality certifications Table 1. Socio-demographic distribution of the collected sample by comparison with the Italian population. Variable Levels Frequency (%) Population (%) Age (in years) 18-25 9 10 26-35 39 16 36-45 22 20 46-55 17 24 56-70 13 30 Gender Female 64 51 Male 36 49 No education/Elementary school 0 17 Education Junior high school qualification 3 32 High school qualification 27 36 Bachelor’s degree/ Master’s degree/Post graduate training/PhD 70 15 Civil status Single 57 42 Married 39 47 Divorced 2 3 In a relationship 1 Separated 1 Family members 1 17 33 2 28 27 3-4 42 35 >4 13 5 Geographical Distribution North East 51 19 North West 19 27 South 12 23 Centre 11 20 Islands 7 11 Occupation Office worker 37 Freelance 14 Student/PhD student 14 Housewife 8 Teacher 4 Research/Academia jobs 4 Unemployed 5 Worker 3.5 Retired 1.0 Jobseeker 1.5 Entrepreneur 3.0 Food related jobs (chefs/food bloggers) 1.0 Other 4 Average annual income (€) < 10,000 17 10,000 – 20,000 38 20,000 – 40,000 33 40,000 – 50,000 5 > 50,000 7 Area of origin Rural 30% Urban 70% * Istat (National Statistics Institute) data extracted in November 2019. 40 Bio-based and Applied Economics 10(1): 40-49, 2021 | e-ISSN 2280-6172 | DOI: 10.36253/bae-9909 Niculina Iudita Sampalean, Daniele Rama, Giulio Visentin EU quality logos, PDO, PGI, TSG and organic farming logos and were asked to select those that they were aware of. The results indicated that the logo people were more aware of was the PGI, selected by 82% of respondents, followed by the PDO (76%) and the organic logo (68%), while people were least aware of the TSG with only 34% of them. 25% of the respondents declared that they were aware of all four logos, 30% were aware of three logos, 25% of two logos and 20%, just of one logo (Appendix, Figure 1). These findings were higher than those report- ed in a study by Aprile and Galina (2008) in which the PDO, PGI, TSG and organic mark were recognized by 30%, 16%, 3.5% and 41% of the interviewees, respectively. Arfini (1999) demonstrated that 41.8% of Italian consum- ers were aware of the presence of a PDO-labelled food product in the food market. Similar results were found in a later study by Platania and Privitiera (2006) that assessed the consumer appraisal of the Italian PDO Sop- pressata salami, which reported that 42% of Italian con- sumers were aware of the PDO label. As explained in the review conducted by Grunert and Aachmann (2016), and identified in the present study, the higher degree of con- sumer awareness of European quality labels depended on the time period in which the study was undertaken. To further investigate the self-declared awareness and consumption of the EU quality certifications, par- ticipants were then asked how well they knew the certi- fied products and how often they bought them. The PDO certified products were bought most frequently, with 68% declaring that they regularly (18%) and sometimes (50%) purchased them. Conversely, TSG products were bought least often (4% regularly and 16% sometimes; Appendix, Table 1). Respondents were then presented with six offi- cial definitions extracted from Regulation (EU) No. 1151/2012 and had to choose for each of them the corre- sponding EU certification (PDO, PGI, TSG or none). For both statements that defined the PDO’s out of all respondents 42% were able to identify correctly the one that refers to ’’the production steps of which all take place in the defined geographical area” and 43% “whose quality or characteristics are essentially or exclusively due to a particular geographical environment with its inher- ent natural and human factors”. (Appendix, Figure 2) For the PGI defining statements, the one describing the production steps, was correctly identified by 55%, but only 38% did so for the statement explaining that the qual- ity and reputation are given by the geographical origin. As for the TSG statements, in both cases almost half of the respondents identified the right statements: 46% explaining ‘’the traditional production, processing, and composition for that products’’ and 49% for the state- ment related to the raw materials and ingredients tradi- tionally used, for at least 30 years. Data from Table 2 show the mean and the standard deviations of the elements that consumers used to dis- tinguish the certified products from the conventional products. The “place of the origin” mean was the highest in the case of PDO (4.64), PGI (4.49), TSG (3.73), followed by the “EU quality logo” (PDO 4.29, PGI 4.21, TSG 3.61) which was seen as the most important characteristic for the organically-certified products (4.18), followed by “price” (4.01). The less relevant features were “brand” and “point of purchase” for all four certifications. In accordance with these data, other studies (Contini et Table 2. Means and Standard Deviation of the different attributes distinguishing between EU quality-certified products and conven- tional products. EU certification Attribute Mean Standard Deviation PDO Price 4.01 0.76 Brand (National Brand/Private Labels) 3.62 0.91 EU quality logo 4.29 0.78 Appearance 4.00 0.89 Place of origin 4.64 0.53 Point of purchase 3.44 0.98 PGI Price 3.91 0.90 Brand (National Brand/Private Labels) 3.52 1.00 EU quality logo 4.21 0.93 Appearance 3.94 1.00 Place of origin 4.49 0.77 Point of purchase 3.46 1.12 TSG Price 3.43 1.56 Brand (National Brand/Private Labels) 3.07 1.46 EU quality logo 3.61 1.62 Appearance 3.37 1.58 Place of origin 3.73 1.69 Point of purchase 3.08 1.60 Organic Price 4.01 1.05 Brand (National Brand/Private Labels) 3.48 1.10 EU quality logo 4.18 1.03 Appearance 3.86 1.12 Place of origin 3.91 1.24 Point of purchase 3.36 1.24 41 Bio-based and Applied Economics 10(1): 41-49, 2021 | e-ISSN 2280-6172 | DOI: 10.36253/bae-9909 An investigation into Italian consumers’ awareness, perception, knowledge of European Union quality certifications al., 2016; Vanhonacker et al., 2010b) revealed that “place of origin” was the most important attribute in distin- guishing and choosing between European quality-certi- fied products and conventional products. The choice of “price” as a distinguishing element for quality-certified products can be viewed as a signal of a high-quality product, as confirmed by previous studies conducted by Grunert et al. (2000) and Verberke et al. (2007) Santer- amo (2020) suggested that adding regional certification labels (e.g., Protected Designation of Origin–PDO, Pro- tected Geographical Indication–PGI, American Viticul- tural Area–AVA) or regional information increases con- sumers’ confidence on the product quality. 3.3 Knowledge and consumption of the European quality certifications Results reporting the opinions of respondents in relation to the food safety of European quality-certified products are detailed in Table 3. Food safety was used in this section as a way to study consumer’s knowledge of EU quality certifications as those products are believed to have a higher level of food safety. When respondents were asked whether they con- sidered the PDO certified products safer than conven- tional products, 58% of the respondents replied “yes” and 22% “no”, while 20% responded “I don’t know”. Similar results were recorded with regard to the PGI certified products, with 50% choosing “yes”, 26% “no” and 24% “I don’t know”. Organic farming products reg- istered the highest percentage for “no” with 40%, with only 39% replying “yes”. In relation to TSG products, 50% of the respondents declared they “didn’t know” if they were safer or not, while 25% replied “yes” and 25% answered “no”. Figure 1 reveals evidence of the consumers’ actual knowledge of quality-certified products, as they were asked if they could name any PDO, PGI, TSG or organic products, without being prompted. The results show that in relation to PDO products, over 11% of the sample provided an incorrect answer, around 13% were unable to recall any PDO products, 24% gave one example, 19% two examples, 12% three or four examples, and 9% five examples. As for the PGI products, over 16% of the individuals provided an incor- rect answer, around 28% were not able to quote any example, 26% gave one example, 15% two examples, 8% three examples, 6% four examples and 1% five examples. With regards to TSG products, 13% of respondents gave an incorrect answer, 55% were unable to cite any TSG product, 25% remembered one example, while 7% provided two which is the maximum of right exam- ples possible in Italy. 27% of participants were unable to recall any organic products and 73% provided one or more organic food examples. In relation to the organic product results, de Mag- istris and Gracia (2012) showed that more than 50% of consumers declare to be a habitual buyer of organic food products and around 59% of Italian consumers state that Table 3. Consumers’ perception of the safety of EU quality-certified products. In your opinion, are EU quality-certified products safer than other products? Yes No I do not know PDO products 58% 22% 20% PGI products 50% 26% 24% TSG products 25% 25% 50% Organic products 39% 40% 21% 13% 20% 36% 16% 5% 6% 5% 11% 13% 24% 19% 12% 12% 9% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% W ro ng /In co mp let e No ex am ple 1 p ro du ct 2 p ro du cts 3 p ro du cts 4 p ro du cts 5 p ro du cts Examples of known and consumed PDO products PDO products consumed PDO products known 16% 28% 26% 15% 8% 6% 1% 14% 41% 34% 8% 1% 2% 0% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% W ro ng /In co mp let e No ex am ple at al l 1 c or re ct ex am ple 2 co rre ct ex am ple 3 c or re ct ex am ple 4 c or re ct ex am ple 5 c or re ct ex am ple Examples of known and consumed PGI products PGI products known(%) PGI products consumed(%) Figure 1. Examples of known and bought PDO and PGI products. 42 Bio-based and Applied Economics 10(1): 42-49, 2021 | e-ISSN 2280-6172 | DOI: 10.36253/bae-9909 Niculina Iudita Sampalean, Daniele Rama, Giulio Visentin “probably yes” or “definitely yes”, they pay attention to organic label when shopping organic food products. These results are in accordance with the self- assessed knowledge relating to logos (discussed above in the “awareness and knowledge of European quality cer- tifications” section) except in the evaluation of the PGI products, in which the degree of self-assessed knowledge was higher than the actual knowledge with a frequency of 26%. The results in these findings are higher than those in previous studies like Vecchio and Annunziata (2011) who considered PDO/PGI products together and revealed that over 37% of the respondents gave an incor- rect answer, around 29% were unable to recall any PDO or PGI food, 20% gave less than two names and 14% less than four. Examining the category to which the exam- ples provided belong, it was observed that in the case of the PDO products, the correctly cited products belonged to the cheese category, the meat products category (cooked, salted, smoked), the fresh or processed category (fruit, vegetables, cereals) and finally the oils and fat cat- egory, with figures of 60%, 18%, 3% and 1%, respectively. In the case of the PGI products, 34% of the correct examples were associated with the meat products cat- egory (cooked, salted, smoked), the fresh or processed category (fruit, vegetables, cereals) recorded 26%, closely followed by vinegar at 24% (category known as “other products”). The results correspond to the consump- tion value of Italian PDOs and PGIs in which cheese and prepared meats account for 84% of its total sales (ISMEA, 2018). Regarding these findings Santeramo and Lamonaca (2020), found that Geographical Labels are effective dif- ferentiation tool although their relevance varies across products and origins. For instance, GL is the main dif- ferentiation tool for wine, but it is of low relevance for low-prices products and in different national markets. Costanigro et al. (2010 ) sustains the same results as to the less expensive products, showing that the consumer may not see the value (in terms of search costs) in criti- cally differentiating across many individual producers when buying less expensive products (such as grains, fruits and vegetables) but affirms the contrary when it comes to purchasing more expensive products (such as wine and olive oil), as the incentive to learn about dif- ferences in quality across brand names is more pro- nounced, allowing brand names to capture a larger share of the reputation premium. To determine the consumers’ actual use of EU quality certifications and their accurate consumption, respondents were asked to recall from the previously given examples which products they had purchased during the last three months (Figure 3). In relation to the PDO certification, 13% of the individuals returned an incorrect answer, 20% were not able to provide any example, 36% indicated one example, 16% two exam- ples, 5% three examples, 6% four examples and 5% five examples. In the case of the PGI certification, incorrect or incomplete examples were provided by 14% of the respondents and 41% gave no example at all. Of the cor- rect examples, 34% provided one, 8% gave two, 1% three, 2% four and none (0%) of the participants provided five correct examples. As for the organically certified prod- ucts, 44% of the respondents provided no example at all, while 56% gave one or more examples. Aprile and Gallina (2008) showed the interviewees a list of nine products, from each category considered; all products were PDO or PGI certified and respond- ents were asked to choose those that they purchased more frequently. The more frequent categories were the cheese category, meat products category (cooked, salted, smoked), fruit and vegetables Their findings were very similar to ours. It has been observed that some of the products that appeared in the study of Aprile and Gallina (2008) are not mentioned by our respondents, however, certain new names were mentioned. Another difference is the high- er percentage found in the comparable study, but this is due to the fact that their respondents selected names from a given list, while our respondents gave the exam- ples spontaneously, without any help or suggestion. Our descriptive analysis showed that consumers were asked to provide examples of EU quality-certified products; in most cases, the responses provided con- tained at least one well-known food on the national market (e.g., Parmigiano Reggiano, Mozzarella di Bufala Campana, Gorgonzola, Grana Padano) but their answers were not limited to these. Related to these findings, Deselnicu et al. (2013) revealed that the institutional framework for the Geographical Indications was found to matter: within the same country, quality assurance certifications with higher quality standards (such as PDO) receive higher premiums than less stringent ones (such as PGI). Moreover, when multiple labelling certifi- cations with different minimum quality standard coex- ist (as for PDOs and PGIs in Europe), the price premi- um associated with the labels is lower than when a sin- gle label is used (as for the GI trademark in the United States). Leufkens (2018) tried to prove the positive value of a GI quality signal (i.e. label) by quantifying its mon- etary value for the consumers and found that consumers are willing to pay a marginal premium for the GI, by an average of 11.5 percent, while the PDO alone achieves an LE of 13.6 and a PGI of 6.2 percent. 43 Bio-based and Applied Economics 10(1): 43-49, 2021 | e-ISSN 2280-6172 | DOI: 10.36253/bae-9909 An investigation into Italian consumers’ awareness, perception, knowledge of European Union quality certifications 3.4 Perception, attitudes towards quality food products and purchasing habits In relation to the questions in the second section (Appendix, Table 2), different characteristics were listed, and respondents had to evaluate them using a 5-point Likert scale. With regard to the various aspects that con- sumers recognized as “very important” and “relatively important” in their food purchasing process, the most important was hygiene standards (97%), followed by price (92%), appearance (88%), nutritional value (77%) and PDO certification (75%). The aspects that were seen as less important, registering the highest percent- age of the options “indifferent”, “not much” and “not at all” were TSG certifications (65%), organic certifications (51%), brand (38%) and PGI certifications (33%). When asked about the characteristics of a safe and quality product, the absence of undesirable chemicals and microorganisms was evaluated as “very” and “rela- tively important” (98%), followed by compliance with national and European laws relating to food and the environmental area (96%), controlled and certified pro- duction sites (89%), products that satisfy the senses, are well prepared and preserved (89%), country of origin (86%), sustainable production techniques (80%) and PDO certification (74%). The lowest scores on the Likert scale (“indifferent”, “not much” and “not at all”) were again recorded in relation to TSG certification (59%), popular brand (58%) and organic certification (47%). With reference to the various information found on the product label, the components considered to be “very” and “relatively important” were expiry and use- by date (94%), ingredients (92%) and information relat- ing to the producer and place of production (89%), while 23% regarded nutritional characteristics as being “indif- ferent”, “not much” and “not at all important”. The last question in this section revealed that 88% of the respondents claimed to purchase Italian food whenever they could, 74% claimed to be very proud of the PDO, PGI and TSG products produced in their area, municipality or country. However, only 67% felt that they were supporting local farmers when they bought PDO, PGI and TSG products. As for the affirmation that PDO, PGI and TSG trademark products are too expen- sive, 40% either agreed or completely agreed, 39% disa- greed or completely disagreed, while 21% were neutral. Similar to our findings Deselnicu et al. (2013) shown that stricter regulations may signal increased benefits to consumers in the form of food safety, quality assurance, and stronger cultural or heritage connection, prompt- ing a higher willingness to pay for products that are more closely regulated. Also, more stringent regulations for the PDO designation appear to secure a higher price premium than its less stringent quality-assurance coun- terpart (PGI). 3.5 Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) A series of exploratory factor analyses (EFA) were conducted using the questions and affirmations from the survey’s second section. Before we carried out the EFA, the values of the bivariate correlation matrix of all items were analysed, and where the bivariate correlation scores were greater than 0.8, one of the pair’s items was removed, as suggested by Field (2013). Additionally, the multicollinearity was tested via the determinant of the matrix, whose value of 0.1 exceeded the minimal value of 0.00001. Furthermore, our factor model Kaiser-Meyer -Olkin’s measure of 0.820 proved the adequacy of the sample size. Bartlett’s test of Sphericity was significant (P< 0.001). The Varimax rotation method was employed and the eigenvalues greater than 1 were established as borderlines for the factors extracted. The analyses eventually resulted in the selection of a six-component solution, based on 24 of the 27 initial variables. The six extracted components accounted for 56.32% of the total variance in the data, respecting the rule of at least 50% (Streiner, 1994). Items in this six-component solution were regarded as high and moderately high, loading higher than 0.400 on each component (Kleine, 2014). Their Cronbach’s alpha reliability tests showed increased reliability, with values higher than 0.60 (up to 0.79). Table 4 contains the components resulted from the factorial analysis. The first component “Product compo- sition and characteristics ” comprised variables such as nutritional and organoleptic characteristics, ingredients and label information. The second component “Product’origin ” describe, as the name suggests, the importance given to the origin of the product and of the raw materials producer’s informa- tion, as well consumers’ pride in buying EU quality-cer- tified food that is locally produced. The third component “EU quality certifications” describes the importance con- sumers attach to the European quality certifications (PDO/ PGI/TSG) and how buying EU certified food supports local farmers. The fourth component “Product visual pres- entation relates to the value attributed by consumers to the products appearance and appeal and the expiry date. The fifth component “product law and hygienic compliance” examined the significance of hygiene standards, law com- pliance, absence of unwanted chemicals and controlled and certified production sites in consumers’ food choices. The sixth component “Product price and brand” considered the impact that price and popular brand had 44 Bio-based and Applied Economics 10(1): 44-49, 2021 | e-ISSN 2280-6172 | DOI: 10.36253/bae-9909 Niculina Iudita Sampalean, Daniele Rama, Giulio Visentin on consumer choices. The six components that were obtained using the factor analysis were then used as var- iables in a cluster analysis that divided our sample into four groups, with maximized homogeneity within the individual groups and minimized between them. Table 5 presents a detailed representation of the socio-demographic characteristics of the four clusters. 3.6 The socio-demographic characteristics of the four clusters From a socio-demographic perspective, the first cluster is defined as the most gender-balanced (47% men and 53% women), predominantly from urban areas (73%) with the highest concentration of young consum- ers, as 83% were aged between 18 and 45 years. This group had the highest proportion of one member fami- lies (27%), with 53% earning at least 20,000 €/year (12% of these > 40,000 €/year). The respondents’ occupations were from research and academia (4%), entrepreneurs (5%), students/PhD (16%) and retired people (4% the only cluster in which this group was represented). The second cluster had the highest percentage of primary school graduates together with the highest per- centage of unemployed people (10%) and office workers (65%) but also the lowest number of freelancers (5%). In this cluster none of the participants earned more than 40,000 €/year, half of the participants were made up of families with three to four members and a quarter had four members or more. The third cluster is characterized by an urban popu- lation, consisting predominantly of women (74%), char- acterizes this group, with more than 40% being over 45 Table 4. Factor analysis on the components associated with respondents’ purchasing intent. Items Components Product’ composition and characteristics Product’ origin EU quality certifications Product’ visual presentation Product law and hygienic compliance Product price and brand Nutritional characteristics 0.746 Ingredients 0.639 SustProd techniques 0.595 Label information 0.556 Producers’ experience 0.540 Biological mark (Organic) 0.526 Organoleptic characteristics 0.525 Country of origin 0.786 Frequency of buying 0.728 Local raw materials 0.629 Pride EU marks 0.546 Producer information 0.519 PDO trademark 0.713 TSG trademark 0.604 Support for local production 0.476 Appeal, conservation 0.788 Food aspect 0.779 Expiry date 0.612 Absence of UW chemicals 0.733 Law compliance 0.725 Hygiene standards 0.577 CC Production sites 0.431 Cost, expensiveness of EU trademarks 0.790 Popularity, brand 0.592 Explained variance, % 24.942 9.315 6.807 5.972 4.985 4.295 Cumulative variance, % 24.942 34.257 41.064 47.036 52.020 56.315 *The items are ordered by dimension, and the small coefficients with an absolute value below 0.300 have been eliminated. 45 Bio-based and Applied Economics 10(1): 45-49, 2021 | e-ISSN 2280-6172 | DOI: 10.36253/bae-9909 An investigation into Italian consumers’ awareness, perception, knowledge of European Union quality certifications years old; the highest number of high school only gradu- ates were found in this group (35%) and single (48%) and married (47%) people were equally represented. It was the most diversified group in terms of occupation (teach- ers, food related workers, researchers, workers, freelanc- ers, office workers). The fourth cluster consisted of single individuals with a high standard of education (> 82% had at least a bachelor’s degree) and low annual income, as 69% earned less than 20,000 €/year; this cluster comprised primarily office workers, research workers, housewives and freelancers. Table 5. Socio-demographic distribution among clusters. Variables Level Cluster 1 “visual presentation enthusiasts” Cluster 2 “origin enthusiasts’’ Cluster 3 “food provenance and image enthusiasts’’ Cluster 4 “food regulations enthusiasts’’ Area of origin Rural 27% 40% 27% 33% Urban 73% 60% 73% 67% Gender Male 47% 60% 26% 39% Female 53% 40% 74% 61% Age 18-25 6% 20% 11% 3% 26-35 55% 40% 26% 58% 36-45 22% 20% 23% 21% 46-55 10% 15% 27% 3% 56-70 7% 5% 13% 15% Number of family members 1 27% 10% 11% 24% 2 35% 15% 24% 43% 3-4 35% 50% 50% 24% >4 3% 25% 15% 9% Education No title 0% 0% 0% 0% Elementary or middle school 2% 10% 1% 0% High school 18% 15% 35% 18% Bachelor or master’s degree/PhD 80% 75% 64% 82% Civil Status Single 65% 65% 48% 67% Married/In a domestic relationship 35% 35% 47% 30% Divorced/ Separated 0% 0% 5% 3% Average annual income <10,000 € 12% 25% 15% 24% 10,000-20,000 € 20% 40% 39% 45% 20,000-40,000 € 41% 35% 33% 21% 40,000-50,000 € 4% 0% 6% 3% >50,000 € 8% 0% 7% 6% Occupation Homemaker / Housewife 8% 5% 8% 6% Unemployed 6% 10% 1% 0% Office worker 37% 65% 31% 45% School teacher 2% 0% 4% 6% Freelancer 14% 5% 15% 15% Worker 4% 0% 5% 0% Retired 4% 0% 0% 0% Research/Academia Jobs 4% 0% 9 12 Student/PhD student 16 10 18 6 Entrepreneur 5% 0% 5% 0% Food related jobs(blogger/chef ) 0% 0% 3% 3 Job seeker 0% 0% 2% 6% Others 0% 5 4 1 46 Bio-based and Applied Economics 10(1): 46-49, 2021 | e-ISSN 2280-6172 | DOI: 10.36253/bae-9909 Niculina Iudita Sampalean, Daniele Rama, Giulio Visentin 3.7 The clusters attitudes towards the analysed variables As regards to the considered variables (Table 6), first cluster ’’visual presentation enthusiasts’ is character- ized by respondents that pay most attention to appeal, appearance, and availability. They also considered law compliance and the healthiness of the product as par- ticularly important in their food choice. This group recorded the lowest interest in producer’s information, origin of raw materials and of the product. In addition, EU quality certifications and support for local econo- mies were insignificant to this group. By comparison with the first cluster, the second cluster ’’origin enthusiasts’’ valued most the producer’s information and the origin of raw materials and of the product. This cluster recognized extrinsic characteris- tics (price, brand) as decisive. Law compliance and the healthiness of the product were less important elements for this group. Organoleptic, nutritional and sustainabil- ity characteristics were also regarded as insignificant. The third cluster ’’food provenance and image enthu- siasts’’ was the only cluster that valued all the components positively (Table 6), demonstrating a great interest in pro- ducer’s information, origin of raw materials and of the product, as well as appeal, appearance, and availability. Of all the clusters, the last cluster ‘’food regulations enthusiasts’’ attributed the highest value to law com- pliance and the healthiness of the product. EU quality certifications and support for local economies, as well as producer’s information and the origin of raw mate- rials and of the product, were essential elements of this group’s components. 4. CONCLUSIONS AND RECCOMENDATIONS Our results outlined that the level of perception, awareness, knowledge and consumption of EU quality labels has increased considerably among Italian consum- ers in recent years. With respect to geographical indications, a wide- spread awareness of the guarantees offered by the PDO and PGI marks in relation to production steps, the natu- ral and human factors of a particular environment and the reputation and quality of a region were assessed. As for the traditional specialties (TSG) an extensive knowl- edge regarding the traditional practices of production, process and composition, as well as ingredients and raw materials was identified. New policy and communication efforts could be used by the consortia to enhance con- sumers’ curiosity towards products that are PDO/PG/ TSG or organic certified. Our results allow us to formulate some suggestions for the policy makers as well as for the Consortia and the producers of the PDO/PGI/TSG/Organic products. Seeing that our consumers were divided in four clusters we assume that even at the national/international level there is heterogeneity as regards to these labels, therefore for each of the cluster we propose some communication strategy. For the “Visual presentation enthusiast” cluster, the strategy adopted should concentrate more on the way these products are presented, using attractive packaging but also one that helps reflect the look of the products. For the “Origin enthusiasts” the message of the communication campaign should point out how these products are unique in the sense of the typicity that is given by the particular geographical areas where they are produce and by the raw materials they are made of, strengthening the importance that these two elements have on the final product. As to the ‘’Food provenance and image enthusi- asts’’ cluster considering their positive attitude towards all the quality certified foods’ attributes, we believe that the message the policy makers as well as the produc- ers and Consortia should sponsor and publicize, is one Table 6. Final Cluster Centres. Cluster 1 “visual presentation enthusiasts” (8%) 2 “origin enthusiasts’’ (53%) 3 “food provenance and image enthusiasts’’ (11%) 4 “food regulations enthusiasts’’ (28%) Product’ composition and characteristics -0.389 -0.443 0.242 0.039 Product’ origin -1.267 0.300 0.471 0.130 EU quality certifications -0.417 -0.086 0.171 0.101 Product visual presentation 0.309 -0.109 0.344 -1.541 Product law compliance 0.126 -2.387 0.289 0.295 Product price and brand -0.208 0.113 0.238 -0.555 47 Bio-based and Applied Economics 10(1): 47-49, 2021 | e-ISSN 2280-6172 | DOI: 10.36253/bae-9909 An investigation into Italian consumers’ awareness, perception, knowledge of European Union quality certifications that could produce some ethical and altruistic motives, therefore the message must stress out the support these products bring to the local economy in the area in terms of jobs and income. The “Food regulations enthusiasts” could be con- quered by campaigns that point out how these quality products follow very strict production rules, with regu- lar checks on healthiness, sanitary and organoleptic ele- ments, and that this is one of the elements that differen- tiate them from the conventional products that might have more relaxed rules and less controls. One limitation of the present study is the fact that the sample is not strictly statistically-representative of the Italian population. The sample is biased towards relatively younger and highly educated shoppers and female consumers. Therefore, additional qualitative and quantitative research needs to be done with a larger and representative sample, to extend the legitimacy of the findings and to generalize the results to represent the national population. 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Very important Pretty important Indifferent Not much Not at all important Hygienic Standards 78% 19% 2% 0% Brand 6% 56% 25% 9% 4% PDO certification 19% 56% 17% 7% 2% Appearance 46% 42% 7% 3% 1% PGI certification 15% 52% 22% 9% 2% Price 39% 53% 6% 2% 0% Nutritional Values 35% 42% 18% 2% 3% Organic certification 12% 37% 27% 14% 10% TSG certification 5% 30% 38% 12% 15% 68% 82% 34% 76% Which of the following logo do you know? Organic PGI TSG PDO 20% 25% 30% 25% Number of logo's respondents declared to know. 1LOGO 2 LOGO 3 LOGO 4 LOGO Figure 1. Self-declared knowledge of the EU quality certifications logos 54% 52% 53% 33% 29% 43%42% 43% 38% 55% 46% 49% 4% 5% 8% 13% 25% 8% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% PDO 1 PDO 2 PGI1 PGI2 TSG1 TSG2 EU quality certification's definitions 0-Wrong definition 1-Right definition * wrong (chose none of the options) Figure 2. EU quality certifications definitions. Volume 10, Issue 1 - 2021 Firenze University Press Ten years of Bio-Based and Applied Economics: a story of successes, and more to come Fabio G. Santeramo1, Meri Raggi2 The capitalisation of decoupled payments in farmland rents among EU regions Gianni Guastella1,2, Daniele Moro1, Paolo Sckokai1, Mario Veneziani3 Contribution of periurban farming systems to local food systems: a systemic innovation perspective Rosalia Filippini1,2, Elisa Marraccini3, Sylvie Lardon2 An investigation into Italian consumers’ awareness, perception, knowledge of European Union quality certifications, and consumption of agri-food products carrying those certifications Niculina Iudita Sampalean1, Daniele Rama1, Giulio Visentin2 Wine after the pandemic? All the doubts in a glass Daniele Vergamini*, Fabio Bartolini, Gianluca Brunori Public R&D and European agriculture: impact on productivity and return on R&D expenditure Michele Vollaro1, Meri Raggi2, Davide Viaggi1