Eliciting Consumers' Health Consciousness and Price-Related Determinants for Polyphenol-Enriched Olive Oil

Several studies have evaluated consumer interest in olive oil as a functional food due to its multiple health benefits, but to date, no author has assessed consumers' additional premium price for a differentiated product enriched with its own polyphenols. This paper aims to investigate which predictors are related to health consciousness by assessing the willingness to pay an additional premium price for olive oil with functional properties. In addition, the study assesses how self-perceived nutritional knowledge affects price levels and interest in olive oil characteristics. The survey was carried out in Italy and the statistical analyses were conducted in two stages: the first adopted an econometric approach to evaluate which variables are related to the additional premium price for the product while in the second stage, inferential statistics were performed to obtain information on the role of self-perceived nutritional knowledge. Based on these outcomes, the prominent role of extrinsic characteristics, such as Geographical Indications (GIs), local attributes and health nutritional information emerged, reaffirming the strong link with the territory and health concerns of modern olive oil consumers. Finally, high self-perceived nutritional knowledge respondents were aware of the antioxidant properties of olive oil and registered the highest price thresholds.