A COO study towards the portuguese preference for national food goods

Summary: Country of Origin (COO) has become a highly discussed topic, since consumers are constantly exposed to products from different countries due to the wide-ranging effects of globalization. COO image is a powerful tool that can be used to gain competitive advantage and change consumers attitude. For this matter, stereotypical bias may change perceived quality ratings once consumers are well aware that good chocolate usually comes from Switzerland or Belgium and good coffee from Brazil or Colombia. COO’s heuristic nature, also, saves consumers from extensive product evaluation. The present dissertation aims to identify to which extent Portuguese people prefer to buy domestic food items, what are the main reasons leveraging this choice and under which conditions. An online survey (targeted to Portuguese people) was run gathering 155 valid answers. The results analysis showed that there is a significant difference for preference on Portuguese food depending on its stereotype. Specifically, Portuguese revealed to have a higher preference and purchase intention for domestic food goods when these are stereotypically Portuguese or when they do not carry any stereotype. When a certain food product is stereotypically better to be foreign, Portuguese lean towards this option. The preference for Portuguese food in each of these three scenarios is leveraged by the consumers Patriotism and leveraged by COO image only for stereotypically Portuguese food. Different levels of time constraint did not show relevant differences in the participants attitudes