Sensory Quality Attributes Affecting Consumers’ Purchase Patterns toward Drinking Milk: Case of TRA1 Region

Position approaches implying for raw drinking

milk at retail level have caused significant changes on consumers’ purchase

patterns in recent years. In particular, sensory quality attributes have begun

to become one of the determinant factors on their buying model. This study was

planned to determine, therefore, how sensory quality attributes of drinking

milk affected their purchase patterns. Data

collected from the study were obtained from 765 households consuming drinking

milk in TRA1 Region. Principal Component

Analysis to determine the main factors impacting on drinking milk

consumption patterns, and K-means Cluster

Analysis to establish homogeneous consumer segments according to their

consumption frequencies were used. The result of the study indicated that drinking

milk users at heavy, medium and light levels focused on the structural and

visual properties and the freshness of drinking milk related to raw drinking

milk sources, and the sensory quality such as the taste, odor, and consistency of

organic processed drinking milk, respectively. Differentiation according to the

supply source of untreated fresh raw drinking milk for the heavy and medium

users, therefore, but positioning of processed pasteurized and UHT drinking

milk with higher sensory quality attributes under organic production technics

at retail levels for the light users could significantly increase their

consumption satisfaction.