Abstract:
As the marketing process becomes more complex and competitive in a globalized
market, affluent rice consumers have more power to demand for specific attributes,
especially in terms of quality which is defined by attributes of rice, health and
safety. Hence, understanding consumers’ preference for rice attributes becomes very
important particularly for locally produced rice. Such understand will enable farmers
and other actors along the rice value chain to improve rice quality in order to suit
consumers’ needs and therefore enhance marketability. This research was carried out
to establish consumers’ preference for rice attributes that define the quality of rice in
Dar-es-salaam city where most of rice is consumed in Tanzania. The specific
objectives were: to provide an overview of the rice marketing structure and analyze
different varieties of rice sold in market places, to explore rice attributes which
enhance consumers’ demand for specific rice varieties and to assess consumers’
willingness to pay a premium price for desired rice attributes. Data were collected
from April to May 2014. The sample was picked from twelve markets, which include
seven local markets and five supermarkets in the Dar-es-salaam city of Tanzania. For
the market survey, 152 rice consumers were selected randomly for an interview. Data
analysis was done using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software,
version 16.0 and Stata using conjoint and rank-ordered logistic regression
respectively. The results established that, aromatic attributes highly influenced
consumers’ decision to purchase a certain rice variety, followed by cleanness, origin,
price and proportion of breakage. Consumers were willing to pay a higher price for
desired attributes. The study established that, producers should invest in producingiii
aromatic varieties while rice traders and processors should invest in advanced
technology to improve the cleanness and reduce the proportion of broken part of rice.
