THE STUDY OF INDIRECT RELATIONSHIPS AMONG THE CONSUMERS OF PRODUCTS OF THE BUFFALO CHAIN

In order to study the indirect relationships among consumers that occur around the reasons-based choice of a food product, and in particular, the products of the buffalo industry, a survey was conducted, through questionnaires, on a sample of 2000 consumers in the traditional retail sale points (local markets, specialized shops, farmers' market, etc.), located in the city of Catania (Italy), Siracusa (Italy), Ragusa (Italy) and Enna (Italy).For the analysis of the acquired data, and thus to characterize the network, in which nodes are the reasons-based choice of the consumer and the ties between these the sharing, also in terms of intensity, of two or more consumers, method of Social Network Analysis (SNA) was used. The main properties (density and centrality) of this bimodal network were studied. From network analysis emerges as a strong influence on the reasons-based choice of consumer is exercised by the presence of farms in Sicily, by preference Sicilian products as well as from the classic knowledge channels related to relationships with friends and/or family members. Through SNA was revealed, however, that all the reasons-based choice, although with different weight, contribute to the choice of the consumer, thereby demonstrating that even the weakly bound factors, play an important role, in determining the consumer choice.