Consumer awareness, attitudes and preferences towards heritage cereals

Interest in heritage cereals is increasing among consumers, bakeries and farmers, and thetrends point towards the local production of crops and connect to sustainability. The most knownvariety is spelt, which has opened up for old landraces such as Oland wheat. Heritage cereals haveshown a higher resilience than modern varieties and have the potential to supply the market withalternative products that have an attractive cultural background. Delicious and nutritious productsbased on heritages cereals have a growing market potential. Consumers’ attitudes and preferences todierent products are aected by factors such as age, gender and education. The aim of this studywas to investigate and analyse dierent consumer groups’ awareness, attitudes and preferencestoward heritage cereals. The number of respondents who participated in this study and answered theweb-based questionnaire was 434. It can be concluded that most consumers are aware of heritagecereals. Geographic background had an influence, while academic background did not. Bread andpasta are the most consumed products and are regarded as the most popular future products tobe based on heritage cereals. The most essential factors in bread are taste and flavour, followedby freshness and texture. The origin of the cereal and its health aspects are important; women aremore concerned about the origin than men, while older consumers are more concerned about health.Older consumers are also more willing to pay extra for heritage cereal than younger consumers.