Consumer acceptance for sheep milk-based yogurt - evidence from a large sample of Italians consumers.

Testing consumer acceptance for a new product, such as the sheep milk-based yogurt, provides a measure of its market success, thus it informs producers on the effectiveness of their decision to transform sheep milk into yogurt to increase their revenues. This work explores to what extent consumers accept sheep milk-based yogurt and test the role of person related factors and product related features on shaping its acceptance. The study collects data from a representative sample of Italian yogurt consumers, and data are then analyzed via a logistic regression. Results show that male, highly educated and high-income consumers are more likely than others to accept sheep milk-based yogurt. Findings suggest that consumers’ food neophobia and variety-seeking traits play a pivotal role in affecting consumer acceptance. Lastly, interest in nutritional and health-related yogurt features increases the probability of accepting sheep milk-based yogurt. Thus, sheep milk-based yogurt should be targeted at high-end male consumers and those interested in nutritional and health-related aspects of yogurt. Informing consumers about the sheep milk yogurt properties may further increase its acceptance and curb food neophobia which we found to be one of the main barrier for the product acceptance. Future studies will explore consumer acceptance by using a real product and taste experiments.


INTRODUCTION
Sheep milk is a good source of several beneficial nutrients for human health such as conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), omega-3 fatty acids, β-carotene, vitamins A and E. Such nutrients' content is higher in sheep milk compared with the milk from other ruminants (Balthazar et al., 2010).In addition, sheep milk promotes lower allergic sensitization compared with goat and cow milk (Masoodi and Shafi, 2010), and it is agglutinin free with a higher digestibility than cow milk (Park et al., 2007).Thus, sheep milk consumption and its products are recommended both to children and adults (Albenzio et al., 2016).Besides the benefits for human health, sheep milk is produced according to environmentally sustainable farming practices in rural areas of Mediterranean countries (e.g., France, Greece, Italy, and Spain) with a high natural value.Thus, sheep milk production matches the societal demand for sustainable food products and it plays a pivotal role in supporting the rural communities economies (Pulina et al., 2018).The many health and environmental benefits associated with the production and consumption of sheep milk and related products (e.g., cheese, yogurt) have spurred the market demand for such products which have gained market share in the last 10 years, and whose market demand is expected to rise from 30 to 50% by 2030 (Balthazar et al., 2017;Pulina et al., 2018).
Despite such promising market trends, milk sheep farms located in the rural areas of Mediterranean countries have lowered in number over the last decades as several farmers abandoned their activity or opted for part-time livestock farming due to the low profitability associated with sheep milk production and of its products (Pulina et al., 2018).The remaining professional farmers suffer structural limitations, such as farm atomization and the small scale of production, that hinder farmers' ability to internalize a higher share of the revenue from selling sheep milk-based products, which often occurs in niche markets nearby the production area (Dubeuf et al., 2010).Also, sheep milk price volatility is a further threat to professional farmers' incomes, with farmers that ultimately barely receive prices for their products to cover the production costs (Pulina et al., 2018).Thus, to increase their margins, on-farm transformation and product diversification are activities of increasing importance, as the latter can enable farmers to capture a higher share of added value from the growing demand for sheep milk and sheep milk-based products (Ruiz et al., 2010;Pulina et al., 2018).Considering the points discussed above, transforming sheep milk into different types of dairy products with functional characteristics as yogurt has been indicated as a promising strategy to support farmers in adding value to their products and increasing their revenues.The production of sheep milk-based yogurt already represents the strategic choice of differentiation implemented by many Greek sheep farmers to remain competitive in the market (Balthazar et al., 2017;ISMEA, 2018).Indeed, sheep milk yogurt can provide a profitable source for farmers due to its specific typicality, sustainable and healthy characteristics, making such a product potentially appealing to consumers.However, the success of a new product such as sheep milk based yogurt, which is a new product for many markets, will depend on whether consumers accept it as part of their diet (Grunert and van Trijp, 2014).
Thus the current work test consumer acceptance of yogurt made from sheep milk by surveying a representative sample of Italian responsible for food shoppers, who are also yogurt consumers.The work collects information on person related factors such as biological (e.g., gender, age), socio-cultural (e.g., education, income source, etc.), and psychological ones (e.g., food neophobia and product variety-seeking traits) (van Trijp and Steenkamp, 1992;Pliner et al., 1992).The work also gathers information on individual preferences for yogurt's features (e.g., taste, health and nutritional information, origin, and price).Person-and productrelated factors collected are selected based on existing literature and a theoretical framework described in the next section.
The work focuses on the Italian market as Italy is one of the main sheep milk producers, mainly used to produce hard cheeses, whose sales are lowering domestically and abroad (Pulina et al., 2018).The lower market demands generate drops in sheep milk prices paid to farmers by cheese processors, with farmers that often prefer to suspend the milking as unable to cover the production costs with the price received (ISMEA, 2018;Amiel, 2019).For instance, in 2019 Italian sheep milk prices dropped to 0.60€/liter compared with 0.85 €/liter in 2018, while farmers demanded that prices be raised to 0.70 €/liter at least to deliver the milk to cheese processors and called for public support (Amiel, 2019).Thus, exploring consumer acceptance for yogurt obtained from sheep milk may offer an opportunity to farmers to receive fair revenue from their work by diversifying the production and retaining people in rural areas where sheep milk production is relatively concentrated (ISMEA, 2018).

Theoretical framework explaining yogurt choices and research questions
Consumers' food choices are shaped by many interrelating and competing factors, encompassing personrelated factors (e.g., biological, physiological, psychological, and socio-cultural) and product-related ones that includes intrinsic (e.g., taste) and extrinsic (e.g., health and nutritional information, product origin information, price) product features (see Köster, 2009).Thus, one has to take into account for all person-and product-related factors determining individuals' food choices to size accurately in the impact of each factor in the yogurt choice decision process.
First, person-related factors such as biological ones include individuals' age and gender as food choice predictors (Köster, 2009).Extensive marketing literature pointed out that female and older individuals are more likely to include in their diet larger shares of healthy foods such as fish, fruit, and vegetables.Also, they are more likely to consume yogurt as intrinsically perceived as healthy food and for the beneficial effects on health, as indicated in the health and nutritional claims on the label (Bimbo et al., 2017).Biological factors were found to affect the individual decision to consume sheep milkbased products, as reported in several univariate and correlation analyses.Sheep milk-based product acceptance increases with the respondents' age consistently with findings reported for the cow milk yogurt, while mixed findings have been recorded for to role of gender on acceptance (Young et al.'s, 2012;Lanfranchi et al., 2017;Chollet et al., 2014).
Second, socio-cultural factors are person-related ones encompass individual factors such as education, household income, and size.Such factors have been proved to affect individual food choices consistently proving that highly educated individuals, along with those living in households with high income, are more likely to accept, prefer and consume healthy and sustainable food options (e.g., fruit, vegetables, whole foods, yogurt) while lowering the intake of unhealthy ones (e.g., snack, processed products) (Carlucci et al., 2015;Bimbo et al., 2015;Bonanno et al., 2017).Instead, mixed results were found on the role of household size and food choices.Few studies found that individuals who live in larger households with children are more willing to adopt healthier eating habits rising their yogurt consumption (Barrena and Sanchez, 2010), while others found the opposite as the net available household income decrease as household size increases lowering healthy food affordability (Bimbo et al., 2015;Bonanno et al., 2017).Similar results were found in studies exploring the role of socio-cultural factors on the acceptance and preferences of yogurt for products made using goat and sheep  , 2014, Chollet et al., 2014, Lanfranchi et al., 2017;Maceín et al., 2020).
Third, the last person-related factor affecting food choices is the psychological one.Related to new products, as in this paper the sheep-milk-based yogurt, psychological factors which may affect their acceptance or rejection are food neophobia and variety-seeking traits (Pliner et al., 1992;van Trijp and Steenkamp, 1992).Existing literature found that food neophobia is a well-established and undisputed barrier to trying novel foods and it is indeed defined as the attitude toward food which consists in reluctance to eat new foods and avoidance of trying unknown products (Pliner et al., 1992;Placentino et al., 2021).Instead, the varietyseeking trait measures the desire to alternate between familiar foods and unfamiliar ones predicting the individual's inclination to seek and consume a range of novel products besides the familiar ones (Kahn, 1995;Nicklaus et al., 2005;Adamowicz and Swait, 2013).The role of food neophobia and variety-seeking traits in affecting acceptance and preferences for food products obtained from ruminants' milk has never been explored in the literature to date.
Forth, product-related characteristics, intrinsic (e.g., taste) and extrinsic (e.g., health and nutritional information, product origin-related information, and price) ones may prompt/hinder the acceptance of food products as reported in the literature (Köster, 2009).Taste is an intrinsic product-related feature that determines the individual's decision to consume or avoid a selected food item.Such decision is mediated via sensory stimuli (e.g., vision, olfaction, taste, and texture) that provide primary information to individuals on food's taste.Positive food taste expectations will lead individuals to eat a food item (Drewnowski, 1997;Köster, 2009), including food products made from ruminant milk whose "mutton" flavor may work as a barrier to its acceptance (Mandolesi et al., 2020).Furthermore, an individual's food choice is modulated by extrinsic product characteristics such as health and nutritional information, product origin-related information, and price (Köster, 2009).Extensive marketing literature has pointed out that health and nutritional information associated with food products increases their acceptance, including that of dairy ones (Bimbo et al., 2017).Local and domestic foods are preferred over others, and consumers strongly prefer dairy products made by using local or domestic milk (Norris and Cranfield, 2019;Printezis et al., 2021).Preferences for local and domestic dairy products are partially due to the fact that information on the origin of milk on the label is used as an indirect criterion for making sustainable food choices.Consumers, in fact, often select foodstuffs produced nearby they live to lower the miles foods take to reach their tables and make environmentally and climate-friendly purchase decisions (Southey, 2021).Instead, the product price is often indicated as a leading barrier for consumers in purchasing both dairy and non-dairy products (Zineeddine et al., 2021).
All the above factors shape individual food choices, thus the current study jointly accounting for them in the analysis aims to address 3 main research objectives: i) measure to what extent consumers accept sheep milkbased yogurt; ii) test the role of person-related factors on sheep milk-based yogurt acceptance, including psychological traits as food neophobia end variety seeking; iii) and lastly, explore whether consumer's interest in selected intrinsic and extrinsic product features (e.g., interest health and nutritional information, product origin, price, and tastes) shapes consumers acceptance for sheep milk-based yogurt.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Individual-level data were collected through an online survey by a professional marketing agency in November 2019.The original data set, collected by the marketing agency, encompassed 603 questionnaires and for each respondent informed consent was obtained.However, after a preliminary inspection, 12 questionaries were found incompletely filled out and thus eliminated from the analysis.The final sample of 591 food shoppers and yogurt consumers was analyzed.The collected data were anonymous, there were no identifying values that can link the information to the participant.Also, the survey was voluntary, and participants had the opportunity to exit the survey at any time therefore, ethical approval was unnecessary.Consumers sample was stratified for age, gender, and area of residence, as well as it is representative of Italian responsible household food shopping.Each consumer who decided to participate in the research survey received background information as: "Italian sheep farmers are evaluating the opportunity to produce, in addition to aged hard cheese, yogurt made with sheep milk as a product differentiation strategy."Such background information introduces participants to the research topic and survey-related questions.
The consumer acceptance was measured via his/her willingness to buy (WTB) sheep-milk based yogurt as each respondent was asked answer the question: "Imagine that you are shopping at the grocery store and that a sheep milk-based version of the yogurt you usually buy is available on the shelf.Are you willing to buy it compared to the conventional yogurt you purchase?." Thus, given the binary consumer's response, the individual level of willingness to buy (WTB) sheep-based yogurt was collected by binary indicator taking value 1, whether the consumer was willing to buy sheep-based yogurt, Also, respondents' psychological factors such as food neophobia and willingness to try new or novel foods were evaluated via the food neophobia scale (FNS) (Pliner et al., 1992) and variety-seeking scale (Varseek) (van Trijp and Steenkamp, 1992), respectively.Food neophobia scale consists of 10 items, 5 neophilic and 5 neophobic ones about food or situations related to food consumption.Each respondents express his/her level of agreement respect each item tested using a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).After reverse coding the responses for the neophilic statements, a total FNS score ranging from 10 to 70 was calculated by summing the rating of each item.The higher the FNS score, the higher the food-neophobia level.Then, consumers were classified in 3 groups as suggested by van Trijp and Steenkamp (1992): individuals with low neophobia level, those scoring a value of FNS below 23 (FNS_Low); individuals having medium neophobia level, scoring a FNS value between 24 and 41(FNS_Medium); and lastly individuals with high neophobia level who scored a value of FNS above 42 (FNS_High).Instead, variety seeking scale consists of 8 items.Each respondents express his/her level of agreement respect the item tested using a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) with a total score of variety seeking scale ranging from 8 to 40 calculated by summing the rating of each item.The higher the value of the variety-seeking score, the higher the individual tendency to try new foods not included in their own eating pattern.Then, consumers rating 25 or below might be considered as low in variety seeking tendency with respect to foods (Varseek_Low), and consumers rating 35 or above as high in variety seeking tendency (Varseek_High).People with variety seeking scores ranging from 26 to 34 are medium variety seekers (Varseek_Medium).Food neophobia scale (FNS) (Pliner et al., 1992) and variety-seeking scale (Varseek) (van Trijp and Steenkamp, 1992) items are reported in Table 1.
Also, the survey collected data on respondents' interest in yogurt intrinsic and extrinsic features (PRRF).
Respondents were asked to answer the question: "Imagine that you are selecting a yogurt to purchase from the shelf at the grocery store: which of the following productrelated features is more relevant in deciding the yogurt to buy? Please, select one or more of the following productrelated features from those listed here: i) product taste ii) information related to the yogurt's nutritional properties; iii) information on whether the yogurt has beneficial effects on human health once consumed and conveyed by the health claim; iv) information on the origin of the milk used to produce the yogurt; and, lastly, v) the product's price.Respondents could select all items listed above.
A detailed description of person and product related factors collected is reported in Table 2.
Given the data collected we posit the following linear relationship were the respondent's i willingness to buy sheep-based yogurt (WTB) was function of person related features (PERF), and of yogurt intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics (PRRF): where β is a vector of coefficients quantifying the relationship between the respondent's WTP and the explanatory variables, e i is an idiosyncratic error term.
The equation 1 was estimated using a logit estimator, given the dichotomous nature of dependent variable, and robust standard errors for heteroskedasticity.The logistic regression was estimated using STATA software 16.0.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Respondents, as reported in Table 2, were equally distributed between women and men, the majority (23%) aged between 41 and 50 years old and with a high school education level (52%).A large part of the respondents (39.4%) were employees in the public or private sector with a net monthly family income of between 1001 -2000€ (36.9%) and above 2001€ (53,3%).The average household size was of 3 family members.Consumers sampled were largely interested in the origin of the milk used to produce the yogurt, its price, and in the health benefits associated with its consumption.In terms of reliability for psychological scales, the FNS and Varseek scales' Cronbach α values were 0.7561 and 0.8892, respectively.The Cronbach's α values above 0.75 imply that the FNS and Varseek scales are highly reliable to capture individual food neophobia and variety seeking trait.Also, the average respondent values The estimated logit coefficients of equation ( 1) along with the marginal changes in the probability of purchasing sheep milk-based yogurt calculated at the mean value of other variables are reported in Table 2.The likelihood ratio chi-squared of 140.33, with a p-value of 0.0000, points out as the model as a whole is statistically significant, as compared with the null model with no predictors.Also, the model has a pseudo McFadden R-squared of 0.159, a share of corrected prediction of 86.29%, and a Cohen's d effect size of 0.42.
Estimates for person-related factors such the individual gender, point out that female respondents are less likely by 5% approximately to buy sheep-based yogurt compared with males.This result is consistent with Young et al.'s (2012) findings, who tested ruminant milk yogurts (goat yogurt) acceptance among New Zealand individuals (55 panelists) by recording that males prefer goat yogurt over female testers.The latter group shows aversion to the product's odor and flavor, the "mutton" flavor, as were more able to detect it than males.Instead, Lanfranchi et al. (2017), Costa et al. (2014) and Zine-eddine et al. (2021) found no gender difference in acceptance of sheep and goat milk, and related yogurts, investigating their acceptance among Italians, Brazilians, and Moroccans by using univariate analyses and convenience samples of consumers and panelists.
Results estimates for the variable capturing the age of respondents show that respondents' age affects sheep milk-based yogurt acceptance.Respondents between 26 and 50 years old are less likely to accept the product tested than respondents older than 51 years and those between 18 and 25 years.Individuals between 26 and 30 years old have the lowest probability by the −13.9% to accept the product tested.Results contrast findings from studies found that respondents' age is not associated with individual acceptance of non-cow milk and related products (goat milk and goat milk yogurt) among Brazilians and Moroccan consumers (Costa et al., 2014;Zine-eddine et al. (2021).Also, results from our work contrast evidence generated by Chollet et al. (2014) and Lanfranchi et al. (2017) who found, via univariate analysis, that Italians and Swiss consumers over 60 years old are more likely than others to consume non-cow milk (e.g., goat, sheep, donkey milk) and related products (e.g., yogurts and cheeses) due to the health-related benefits associated with their consumption and to their higher digestibility (Chollet et al., 2014;Lanfranchi et al., 2017).Our results by means of logistic regression analysis, which jointly accounts for the many person and products related factors affecting the acceptance of sheep-based yogurt, may provide a more granular picture of the relationship that occurs between respondents' age and their willingness to buy the product, and discouraging producers to target sheep milk-based yogurts to the consumers between 26 and 50 years old.
Respondents' education is statistically related to a higher probability of buying sheep milk-based yogurt.In detail, individuals who accomplished the highest level of education have approximately an 11% higher probability than others to buy sheep milk-based yogurt.The positive association between education and consumer acceptance of non-cow milk products is  3).
Furthermore, respondents' household size does not relate to the acceptance of sheep milk-based yogurt.Instead, respondents' income is positively and statistically associated with a higher intention to purchase the product tested.In detail, individuals with a household monthly net income between 1001 and 2000 euros as well as those earning above 2001 euros, have a higher probability of 14.35% and 14.4%, respectively, to buy sheep yogurt compared with others.This result is consistent with the findings of Lanfranchi et al.'s (2017) who suggested that the Italians' decision to consume non-cow type milk (e.g., sheep and goat milk) is strongly influenced by belonging to a medium-high income group.This finding is likely due to the higher price of non-cow milk products compared with those obtained with conventional cow milk that such consumer groups may afford to pay.
Thus, gender (male), education, and income result to be the main person-related factors, biological and socio-cultural ones, which affect the willingness to buy sheep milk-based yogurt.
Estimated results for variables capturing individual psychological traits such as food neophobia and individual interest for purchasing a higher variety of food products, our estimates point out as food neophobia, captured via a FNS, negatively relates to respondent's willingness to buy sheep milk-based yogurt.Individuals highly food neophobic have a lower likelihood by the 13.6% to buy the product tested compared with those recording low level of food neophobia, thus the high level of food neophobia is the main individual related barrier to select sheep milk-based yogurt in our sample.Such results are consistent with studies suggesting that food neophobia is an individual psychological trait that works as a barrier in preventing individuals' acceptance of food products for which the consumer is unfamiliar, regardless of whether the product is a healthy or unhealthy food product (De Koning et al., 2020;Jaeger and Giacalone, 2021;Placentino et al., 2021).Consumer exposure to, and the rising knowledge about, unfamiliar products mitigate food neophobia increasing the acceptance of the products (Jaeger and Giacalone, 2021) as Costa et al.'s (2014) found analyzing consumers' acceptance for yogurt produced with small ruminants (goat) milk.The latter may also apply to the case of sheep milk-based yogurt.Instead, respondents interested in more product variety show a positive and statistically significant relationship with the willingness to buy sheep milk-based yogurt.Individuals, in fact, scoring medium and high value in the varietyseeking scale had 7.6% and 8.2%, respectively, higher probability to select the product tested compared with individuals with low interest in trying a new/more food variety.Thus, findings confirm as neophilic individuals are more likely than others to try unfamiliar foods and beverages, as previously reported in food marketing and psychological literature (Van Trijp, 1994;Vermeir and Verbeke, 2006).Moving to comment estimated results for variables capturing respondents' interest in intrinsic and extrin-sic yogurt features, 3 out the 5 tested show that affect the acceptance of sheep milk-based yogurt.
The consumers who were interested in the product's taste, an intrinsic product feature, displayed a higher probability of buying sheep milk-based yogurt by 6.4%.Our result is consistent with findings available in the literature provided by Ryffel et al. (2008) and Miller and Lu (2019) who found that hedonic factors are the most relevant driver for consuming sheep and goat dairy products.In particular, the authors pointed out the existence of a share of consumers who like sheep and goat dairy products for the uniqueness of the taste, although the role of sheep-based products' taste is clearly open to debate since other studies recorded opposite results.For instance, Ribeiro and Ribeiro (2010) and Zine-eddine et al. (2021) recorded an high share of consumers that dislike sheep-based products for their peculiar taste and odor.Overall, our findings using a large consumer sample and a logistic regression analysis show a positive association between consumers' interest in sheep yogurt's taste and sensorial characteristics and their acceptance.
Also, respondents interested in extrinsic product features such as nutritional and health-related information in selecting yogurt during their food shopping are more likely than others, by 11% and 6.6%, respectively, willing to buy sheep milk-based yogurt.The interest in nutritional and health information is the main product-  related feature in promoting consumers' willingness to buy, consistently with studies suggesting that the consumers' awareness of health and nutritional benefits potentially guide the consumption of non-cow milk and its related products as detected in other geographical settings outside Italy (Güney, 2019;Zine-eddine et al., 2021).Similarly, Costa et al. (2017) reported that informing consumers of the health benefits associated with small ruminant milk product consumption (cupuassu goat milk yogurt) increases its acceptance and purchase intention.Thus, the interest in the benefits for the health that the product provides guides the intention of and consumption of ruminant milk products, including sheep milk-based yogurt.Pointing out such characteristics on the label will increase the consumer acceptance of the product tested.Surprisingly, consumers' interest in yogurt's origin does not relate to sheep milk-based yogurt acceptance.Such a result can be due to the fact that health and nutritional benefits consumers expect from consuming the product overcome their interest in other productrelated features, including the origin of milk used to obtain it (Vargas-Bello-Pérez et al., 2022).Results suggest that providing information on milk origin to consumers through the label as a means to promote sustainable food choices and support rural communities where sheep milk is produced would result in an ineffective marketing strategy for producers.
Lastly, the not statistically significant relationship between price and consumers' willingness to buy sheep milk-based yogurt can be explained as price does not work as a purchasing barrier for individuals interested in buying foods for the health benefits provided.On the other hand, consumers interested in sheep milkbased yogurt belong to the high-income group, and thus the product's price does not hinder their intention to purchase the product tested.For instance, Maceín et al. (2020) found that Spanish consumers even pay premium prices to purchase locally produced sheep and goat cheese and such consumers record having higher income compared with those not willing to purchase such products.

CONCLUSIONS
Results from the current study, using a large and representative sample of yogurt consumers and a logistic regression analysis, suggest that more than one out of 10 yogurt consumers is willing to buy sheep milk-based yogurt.Consumers recording a higher level of acceptance for the product tested are mainly male, highly educated, as well as having a medium-high income.Instead younger individuals show a higher probability to not accept the product tested.Also, consumer psychological traits shape the sheep milk-based yogurt acceptance: consumers who record medium-high interest to try new and different foods are more willing to try yogurt made from sheep milk; the opposite result is recorded for consumers scoring a high level of food neophobia.Individual interest in the product's nutritional content, and the benefit for own health, are the main product's characteristics that drive consumer acceptance, along with product's taste.
Our findings suggest that manufacturers and policymakers may foster sheep milk-based yogurt's acceptability and consumption by implementing informational campaigns primarily aimed at informing the public about the product's nutritional content and benefits for health from its consumption.Also, an additional strategy to promote sheep milk-based products, including yogurt, can pass through an increase of the sector visibility, for example by opening sheep farms to visitors, including schools and other educational institutions.This would promote direct knowledge on professional sheep farming, on the relevance of supporting rural communities, by providing at the same time the chance to taste in-loco sheep products and gain knowledge on the many benefits they provide.Lastly, the promotion of sheep milk-based products may also occur in short supply chains, promoting the product as "supportive for your health and your community."This commercial strategy may increase the producers' market profitability since selling the product directly to consumers will enable them to retain a larger share of the product's market value by eliminating intermediaries in the food supply chain as suggested in the literature (Kneafsey et al., 2013;Bimbo et al., 2015).Also, selling the product directly to consumer will improve the territorial relations between actors in the market by increasing trust among them, as well as foster the consumption of the product sold, as suggested by Kneafsey et al. (2013).
The current study is not free from limitations.First, our results only apply to the Italian consumers thus might cannot be generalized in other geographical contexts since cross-cultural difference may affect consumer acceptance.Second, our study employs self-declared intention to buy sheep milk-based yogurt measured via a binary indicator by missing to observe behavioral outcomes (e.g., whether consumers purchase or not the product at the shop), as well as to account for contextual factors (e.g., food shop environment) that may shape individuals' behavior.Third, we do not explicitly model the mechanism through which person-and product-related features affect acceptance, and we do not detect and size existing population subgroups that, with a different extent, accept sheep milk-based yogurt.
Thus, future research will fill the limitations listed above by measuring consumers' acceptance of sheep milk-based yogurt using a real product and measuring it via a 5-or 7-points Likert scales in experiments that include product tasting.A more accurate dependent variable capturing consumer acceptance of, and preference for, sheep milk-based yogurt may offer a more detailed indication of its drivers.For instance, the product's price may affect consumer acceptance if the latter is measured via the Likert scale, in a choice experiment, or using actual purchases as dependent variables.Data collected will be then processed using multivariate data analysis techniques that will provide a more granular picture of consumer behavior.Also, robust findings will be obtained in the future by using behavior outcomes (e.g., sales) to measure consumers' preferences for sheep milk-based yogurt, as well as accounting for contextual factors that may shape consumers' decisions to purchase it.

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Devitiis et al.: CONSUMER ACCEPTANCE FOR SHEEP MILK-BASED YOGURT milk (Utami

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Devitiis et al.:  CONSUMER ACCEPTANCE FOR SHEEP MILK-BASED YOGURT and 0 otherwise.The consumer WTB was used as dependent variable in the data analysis.Also, survey collected data encompassing consumers' socio-economic characteristics (PERF) and that were used as explanatory variables.Person related factors collected were: respondent's gender (Gender), age in classes (from Age_Class_ < 25 to Age_Class_ > 61), household size (HouseSize), education level in 5 classes capturing the maximum level of educations achieved by each respondent (PhD -Ph.D. degree; Master -Master degree; Bachelor -Bachelor degree; High School -High school degree; Middle_Elem -Middle or elementary school degree), and the total household available income that we conveniently collected in 3 classes (from Income < 1000 to Income > 2001).

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Devitiis et al.: CONSUMER ACCEPTANCE FOR SHEEP MILK-BASED YOGURT of FNS and Varseek scales were of 33.83 and 28.45, respectively.

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Devitiis et al.: CONSUMER ACCEPTANCE FOR SHEEP MILK-BASED YOGURT Table 1.Food neophobia scale and variety-seeking scale items Food neophobia scale (10 Items): Neophilic Items 1.I am constantly sampling new and different foods 2. I like foods from different countries; 3.At dinner parties, I will try a new food 4. I will eat almost anything 5.I like to try new ethnic restaurant Neophobic Items 6.I don't trust new foods; 7. If I don't know what is in a food I won't try it; 8. Ethnic food looks too weird to eat 9.I am afraid to eat things I have never had before 10.I am very particular about the foods I will eat Variety-seeking scale (8 Items): 1.When I eat out, I like to try the most unusual items, even if I am not sure I would like them 2. While preparing foods or snacks, I like to try out new recipes 3. I think it is fun to try out food items one is not familiar with 4. I am eager to know what kind of foods people from other countries eat 5.I like to eat exotic foods 6. Items on the menu that I am unfamiliar with make me curious 7. I prefer to eat food products I am used to 8. I am curious about food products I am not familiar with confirmed by Chollet et al. (2014) and Maceín et al. (2020) who investigated Swiss and Spanish consumers' preferences for and acceptance of goat and ewe milk products.Similarly, Lanfranchi et al. (2017) found higher sheep and goat milk consumption among highly educated Italians (Table

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Devitiis et al.: CONSUMER ACCEPTANCE FOR SHEEP MILK-BASED YOGURT

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Devitiis et al.: CONSUMER ACCEPTANCE FOR SHEEP MILK-BASED YOGURT

Table 2 .
Summary statistics and variables description used in the analysis (Sample obs.= 591) a For all binary variables the standard deviation is omitted as the mean, reported in table, represents the share of observations showing value of 1 instead, for categorical and continuous variables standard deviation is reported in parenthesis.