Title: Probiotic dairy platforms - consumer attitudes and purchasing habits

Authors: Tina Vukasović; Aleksandra Zajc; John L. Stanton

Addresses: Faculty of Management, Koper and International School for Social and Business Studies, Celje, Slovenia ' Mlekarna Celeia d.o.o., Arja vas 92, SI-3301 Petrovče, Slovenia ' Department of Food Marketing, St. Joseph's University, Philadelphia, USA

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to better understand consumers' attitudes, expectations and behaviour toward probiotic milk products in selected European country. The method used for data collection was a structured online questionnaire. The survey revealed an important functional correlation between consumers and probiotic dairy products in terms of their beneficial effects on digestion and overall health. In addition to the good taste that consumers recognised in probiotic dairy products, the quality and naturalness of the product, which is expressed in the attributes 'natural aroma' and 'free of artificial colours', are also important. The aforementioned attributes have proved to be crucial for the future communication strategy of probiotic dairy products. Consumer attitudes show that there is an opportunity to position probiotic around holistic health.

Keywords: consumer behaviour; purchasing decision; innovation; knowledge management; yoghurts; probiotics; attributes.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIL.2024.142042

International Journal of Innovation and Learning, 2024 Vol.36 No.4, pp.508 - 529

Received: 03 Oct 2023
Accepted: 15 Nov 2023
Published online: 07 Oct 2024 *

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