Vinícius Rodrigues Arruda Pinto^1,, Laura Fernandes Melo¹, Douglas Fernando Balbino¹, Juliana Farias de Novaes², Maria Claudia Negrete³, Thiago Duarte de Sousa⁴

Data on the consumption and buying behavior of milk and dairy products, collected in Viçosa, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil was used to predict the consumption profile of such products in an effort to better understand the dairy market. This study set out to identify the preferences of consumers of dairy products as well as the most appropriate marketing strategies for increasing the competitiveness of small and medium-sized dairy industries. Three hundred people responded to a structured questionnaire applied in interview form. Most of the consumers (73%, specifically) would pay for a better quality, functional product, of which 58.48% attributed their answers to health concerns. "Low fat" and "cholesterol-free" were pointed out by 50% of the interviewed consumers as essential features of healthy products. Overall, most of these potential consumers buy milk (95%), yogurt (86.3%), and mozzarella (82.6%). On the other hand, moldy fine cheese was the least purchased dairy product (93%). Recommendations of doctors and nutritionists played a fundamental role in the buying intention of 70% of the consumers. Furthermore, tasting the product at the store and suggestions from friends were reported by 54.7% and 47.7% of the potential consumers, respectively, to stimulate the purchase and consumption of new dairy products. Correspondence analysis was performed to verify the relationship between the favorite purchase locations and the studied dairy products. In addition, a Pearson correlation analysis (p<0.05) was applied to the reasons for buying intention and to the gender of the panelists, highlighting low to moderate correlations (r =-0.53) for men and women.

dairy products, consumer, buying behavior, consumer behavior, healthy products