Nutraceutic Food: Testing The Consumer’s WTP for Sunflower PUFA Oil

Abstract

Nutraceutical foods are supposed to procure medical or health benefits beyond the effects of nutrients compounds alone. However, few of them are accompanied by convincing health claims, as the response to nutraceutical components varies from subject to subject, depends on the concentration of bioactive components and their efficacy must be tested in repeated clinical trials. Many medical studies have proved the non-substitutable roles of polyunsaturated essential fatty acids (PUFA) in many biological and regulatory patterns. The purpose of this research is to test the consumers’ attitude to sunflower PUFA oil and their willingness to pay (WTP) a premium price for the quality of this nutraceutical food. The inference is based on the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) able to capture the complexity of credence quality of this nutraceutical oil to influence the customer decisions. A survey with “ad hoc” questionnaire using CASI technique was submitted to a sample of consumers located in the northeast region FVG in Italy. The results confirmed the two above hypotheses and suggested to frame the communication strategy according with claim regulation to strengthen the customization for PUFA sunflower oil.