The Importance of Fresh Fruit Attributes in Trinidad and Tobago in the Purchase Decision of Women

Abstract: As consumers become more sophisticated their basic requirements change, and issues of product quality and food safety increase in importance while shopping for food and other products. Consumers may no longer be price focused in their purchases. Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) has been transitioning from a low income country to a high income country in the last decade. What attributes are sought by the contemporary T&T female fruit shopper is of vital importance to both Traditional and Modern food retailers. This study attempts to identify the attributes of fresh fruits that are important to female shoppers in the contemporary produce market. The analysis focused on the importance placed on a selected number of fresh fruit attributes in an attempt to identify if they were different between Traditional and Modern outlet shoppers. The results suggest "quality of fruits" is most important to female shoppers, while price ranked 5^th in the list. Quality of fruits, appearance of fruits and nutritional value of fruits were statistically different between Traditional and Modern outlet shoppers. Armed with this information retail fresh fruits operators should be better positioned to develop their marketing strategies.