A repositioning strategy for olive oil in the UK market

Abstract

AbstractDespite a rapid growth in olive oil consumption in recent few years, the culinary use of olive oil is still relatively new to UK consumers, and is still regarded as a set of particular attributes rather than as an everyday cooking oil. To increase sales and attract new users, olive oil needs to be seen by UK consumers as an ‘everyday’ cooking oil, and enter into direct competition with standard vegetable oils. To achieve this, we argue in this paper that standard olive oil needs to be repositioned and distanced from extra virgin olive oil in order to give customers sufficient cues to revise their opinions and consumption strategies. The objective of this paper is to report the results of a conjoint study as a tool for the analysis of attribute trade‐offs made in product choices by consumers, applied to the UK standard olive oil market. The ideal standard olive oil profile for 130 UK users of olive oil was found to be one packed in medium sized PET bottles (750 ml) at a price of £2.99. [Econ‐Lit citations: M310, M370]. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.