Comparative Study of Honey Consumption in Slovakia and Russia

The current situation on the food market is influenced by various diet trends including eating healthy products. The honey consumption has an increasing tendency because more and more consumers consider honey as a healthy alternative to a refined sugar. The aim of this research paper was to identify consumption patterns regarding honey in terms of annual consumption, its frequency, volume of honey per purchase, consumption structure by family members and factors affecting consumers at honey purchase. The primary data was obtained from a questionnaire survey, which was conducted in Slovakia on the sample of 316 respondents as well as in Russia on the sample of 309 respondents. For a deeper analyses several assumptions were formulated where dependencies between demographic factors (age, education and income,) and annual consumption by using Chi-Square Test of Independence and Cramer´V coefficient, as well as, differences in factors affecting consumers at honey purchase by using Friedman test have been statistically tested. Based on the results it was found out that, the majority of Slovak consumers make honey reserves and prefer to buy 1 kg per purchase while the majority of Russian consumers purchase honey if necessary and prefer to buy 0.5 or 2 - 5 kg per purchase. Honey is generally consumed by all family members in both countries. The mostimportant factors for Slovak consumers was the country of origin (2.59) followed by taste (3.51), type (3.97) and price (4.18), while the least important factors were the size of packaging (6.70) and the design of packaging (6.80). For Russian consumers the most important factors werethe type (2.97), design of packaging (3.13), price (3.28) and taste (3.61) while the least important factors were the size of packaging (6.98), brand (6.50) and the country of origin (6.50) . The majority of consumers in both countries consume from 2 to 5 kg annually and the only significant dependence was confirmed in case of respondents´ age. The annual consumption of young generation is lower in comparison to older generations.