Strategies for conditioning of asparagus (Asparagus officinalis L.): consumer preferences

Asparaguses are a non traditional long lasting horticultural product that require for commercialization an adequate presentation that extends their useful life as well as provides information on the product as a service to the customer stimulating their consumption. Within the possibilities of presentation there are the traditional bunches and at present, at a global level, the use of trays is growing since it allows a Gama IV presentation of the final product. Gama IV represents an appropriate model of production to increase the service level of fresh horticultural products in general, to obtain a greater exhibition and expansion of the consumption. In order to know the preferences of asparagus consumers in relation to the different final product attributes, a study of ten variables was carried out: 1) types of packaging (trays: B, bunches with and without microfilm: ACR and ASR); 2) presence of labels (E); 3) colour: in labels (CE); 4) of background (CF); 5) of letters (CL); 6) presence: of recipe (R); 7) of nutritional value indications (VN); 8) of illustrations (I); 9) of logotypes (Lg) and 10) calibers: G: big; M: medium and P: small assigning a ranking of 1 - 10 to each. A panel test was applied to thirty four potential consumers on 13/11/2008. The CF used were 1: green, 2: yellow, 3: orange, 4: light blue. Differences were found for all the variables analysed. ACR obtained 47 % (10 points), E was highly valued (70 % the highest value), 85 % considered the presence of colour in labels important with orange (53 %) as the preferred background color, followed by yellow (32 %) and black for the letters (88 %). R and Lg were highly recognised by 90 %, whereas the VN and I by 80 %. Sixty one percent of the consumers preferred caliber M.