A Review of Purchasing Preferences for Margarine among Hungarian and International Students

This paper assesses consumer preferences for margarine among Hungarian and foreign university students (studying in Hungary) by using the discrete choice experiment. The questionnaire-based survey was preceded by a focus group interview which, supplemented with knowledge gained from literature, established product attributes involved in the examination (such as price, fat, salt and sunflower oil content). Results suggest that the increase in fat and salt content result in reduced consumer utility and willingness to pay for margarine products. Sunflower oil content, however, was not found to play a significant role in consumer choices. When comparing the two groups, we found that international students tended to be more health conscious than their Hungarian counterparts.