Future market of pizza: Which attributes do they matter?

Pizza is eaten all over the world because of its simplicity and taste. Given its importance in the Italian diet, this paper provides a qualitative insight into fresh pizza consumption for the first time. This study deals with the perception of pizza attributes in Italy focusing on the main drivers of consumer acceptance of the traditional Margherita pizza, and analyzing in addition consumers' preferences for novel types of pizza in the marketplace, such as those made with organic, low calorie or frozen ingredients. The results show how respondents firstly prefer to eat traditional pizza and mainly prefer organic ingredients leading Italian consumers to perceive them more positively than conventional ones. Furthermore, despite the frozen pizza market being fairly well-established in many countries, the study finds a strong propensity to buying fresh pizza in the traditional market. The role of low calorie pizzas appears to be limited despite consumers being quite interested in this type of product. The novelty of this paper is to fill the knowledge gap about new typologies of pizza available in the marketplace, by exploring consumer preferences for and perceptions of a traditionally made product in a traditional producer country. The study will also offer managerial-oriented implications to help pizza producers develop new strategies for better identifying the ongoing demand of pizza consumers both for traditional and new typologies. © 2016, Categorization of the EU Countries in the Context of Agricultural Production.