Arı ürünlerinin bilinirliği ve satın alınma sıklığı

Abstract

Bu çalışma ile tüketiciler tarafından arı ürünlerinin bilinirliği ve satın alma sıklığı arasındaki ilişkilerin incelemesi amaçlanmıştır. Çalışmada 485 tüketiciye uygulanan yüz yüze anket yöntemi ile veriler elde edilmiştir. Verilerin analizi sonucunda katılımcılar arasında balın bilinirliği %99.4, polenin bilinirliği %61.6, arı sütünün bilinirliği %52.8, balmumunun bilinirliği %46.4, arı zehrinin bilinirliği %16.3, propolisin bilinirliği ise %8.9 olarak tespit edilmiştir. Katılımcıların çoğunluğu tarafından balın 2 ya da altı ayda bir satın alındığı diğer arı ürünlerinin ise hiç satın alınmadığı belirlenmiştir. Arı ürünlerinden her birinin bilinirliği ile satın alınma sıklığı arasında anlamlı bir ilişki bulunmaktadır. Arı zehri ve propolis dışında diğer arı ürünlerinin bilinirliği eğitim düzeyine göre farklılık gösterirken arı zehri dışında diğer arı ürünlerinin bilinirliği ise gelir dağılımına göre farklılık göstermektedir.

Today, beekeeping is one of the most important tools in the rural development process for some countries. Bee products consisting of honey, bee pollen, royal jelly, bee wax, bee venom and propolis have been consumed by human beings since ancient times for many purposes such as nourishment, health and cosmetic. The fact that Turkey has suitable climate and environmental conditions for beekeeping, she has confronted a number of problems such as, consumers’ lack of trust about honey and other bee products, insufficient of publicity activities for bee products. Although agricultural dimension of beekeeping has been widely examined in Turkey, It is obvious that marketing dimension of beekeeping has been slightly studied. For this reason, the aim of this study is to examine the relationship between the familiarity levels of bee products names and purchasing frequencies of bee products by consumers. The study was performed between May and August in 2006. The universe of this study included consumers that reside in urban and rural areas of Turkey. Randomly selected 485 consumers comprised study samples. Face to face survey was used to collect data. The questionnaire consisted of 18 questions with consumers’ various demographic characteristics such as gender, age, occupation, income, familiarity of each bee product names, purchasing frequency of each bee product. The data from the questionnaires was analyzed with SPSS by using frequencies, means and Spearman correlation, one-way ANOVA test. According to the assessment of results; when the familiarity level of bee product names by participants, it was found that familiarity level with honey 99.4%, bee pollen 61.6%, royal jelly 52.8%, bee wax 46.4%, propolis 16.3% bee venom 8.9%. Also, when purchasing frequency of bee products by participants was studied, it was found that honey was purchased commonly within 2 to 6 months, but other bee products is almost never purchased by the most participants. Different variables of hypothesis testing of this study were analyzed with Spearman correlation and one-way ANOVA test. The result showed that there was significant relationship between the familiarity level of each bee product name and its purchasing frequency. In other words, purchasing frequency of bee products was increasing parallel to the better familiarity of bee products by participants. These findings emphasize that consumers must be informed sufficiently about the bee products. Besides, the result showed that there was statistically significant difference for the familiarity of other bee products except for bee venom and propolis according to education level. Also, the result showed that there was a statistically significant difference for the familiarity of other bee products except for bee venom according to the income level. In addition, it was suggested that strategies and policy for integrated agricultural and marketing dimension of beekeeping should be developed and implemented in Turkey. Thus, it might be possible to benefit from current beekeeping potential of our country. The most important limitation of this study was the fact that the sample of study consists of only randomly selected 485 consumers. In spite of this limitation, we expect that findings of this study will be taken into account and may be performed in other academic studies with this subject in the future. Besides, more comprehensive academic studies should be done to examine consumers’ behavior and purchasing preferences of the bee products in Turkey.