Introduction

Among the myriad traditional cheeses made in Mexico are two raw milk cheeses made in the state of Chiapas: Chiapas cream cheese and Ocosingo Bola cheese^1,2. Traditional foods are defined as “a product frequently consumed or linked to a celebration or season, normally transmitted from one generation to another, made in a specific way based on culinary heritage, with or without processing, recognized and known due to its sensory properties, and associated with a certain area, region or country”³. Artisanal cheeses are produced using methods that are unique, non-industrial, small-scale, and minimally mechanized⁴. Thirty-one traditional artisanal cheeses have been described in Mexico². These are associated with small-scale animal production systems, and are often produced by farmers as a way of saving money and ensuring family well-being^5,6.

Products are a collection of tangible and intangible attributes. The tangible refers to objectively verifiable elements of a product, and the intangible to that which does not alter a product’s physical form but helps construct its symbolic meaning⁷. Thomson et al⁸ noted that when processing sensory information consumers obtain functional, emotional and abstract conceptualizations. However, they also seek to build symbols, and manifest more favorable attitudes towards products when these symbolize the values consumers endorse^9,10. Values and beliefs are the units with which attitudes are built in consumers¹¹. Human values are desirable purposes that transcend situations, vary in importance, and serve as guiding principles in an individual’s life or other social entity^12,13. They have been used in the study of food consumption behavior^14,15 in different cultures, such as India¹⁶, China¹⁷ and Europe¹⁸.

The expectation-value model has been used to explain attitudes towards the consumption behavior of a product, be it food in general¹⁹ or a specific product such as meat^20,21. It uses tangible attributes as mediators of the influence of human values on preference. Lindberg, et al²² found that preference for a product was a function of beliefs that the product should completely reinforce human values and their importance. Keaveney and Hunt²³ argued that although the perception of intangible attributes is embedded in the set of perceptions of tangible ones, perception of intangible attributes is greater than the sum of perceptions of tangibles. They state that the distinction between these should be the consequence of the influence of human values, mediating between both kinds of attributes, to influence product preference. When consumers evaluate the utilitarian meaning of a product, human values can influence the importance of its tangible attributes, which in turn indirectly influence product preference. But when consumers assess symbolic meaning through affective holistic judgment, human values can directly influence product preference, employing tangible attributes as mediators. In the indirect route the product serves an instrumental psychological function and in the direct route it serves an expressive function²⁴. Under these assumptions, when choosing some traditional cheese varieties native cheese consumers use intangible attributes more than tangible ones to express their consumer behavior. For other cheese varieties, however, consumers will only be able to use tangible attributes to make their decision. The present study objective was to identify the influence route of human values on consumption frequency of Chiapas cream cheese and Ocosingo Bola cheese.

Material and methods

Descriptive closed-response surveys were used to collect data^19,25, which was processed with the Microsoft Access 2016 program (Microsoft Corporation, USA). For Chiapas cream cheese, a sample of 230 consumers was used which included natives of three municipalities in the state of Chiapas: Pijijiapan, Tuxtla Gutiérrez and Comitán de Domínguez. For Ocosingo Bola cheese, a sample of 200 consumers was used who were natives of the municipality of Ocosingo, Chiapas. In both cases, respondents were consumers over the age of 40 and equally balanced between genders. Sampling was convenience type for an infinite population, and sample size was calculated using maximum variance, with 95 % reliability and a 7 % margin of error. The surveys included three sections. In the first section for Chiapas cream cheese each respondent was presented with a list of ten tangible attributes (the color yellow, the color white, firmness, moistness, crumbliness, milk aroma, soar milk aroma, fat aroma, acid flavor, salty flavor) and the separate attribute “affordable price”. For Ocosingo Bola cheese the first section also addressed “affordable price” plus fourteen tangible attributes: two for the rind (yellow color and moisture), twelve for cheese filling (cream color, moisture, milk aroma, soar milk aroma, fat aroma, acid flavor, salty flavor, bitter flavor, spreadability, softness, crumbliness, and graininess). Attributes were evaluated on a ten-point scale (1 “not important” and 10 “very important”) based on the importance assigned to each attribute by the respondent when deciding to buy the cheese.

For both cheese types the second section was intended to identify the importance respondents assigned to human values. Participants first read a printed sheet with a list of forty human values and their meanings (Table 1); any doubts were resolved by the pollster. Initially they were asked to select the thirteen most important human values, and then to select the thirteen least important values. A worth of 3 was assigned to the values chosen as the most important, a worth of 1 to those deemed least important, and a worth of 2 to those not chosen by the respondent. This methodology is based on a study by Schwartz¹² involving people from twenty countries (n ≥ 200 per country), including all the continents, thirteen languages, and eight religions, as well as atheists. The study used eleven motivational values and 56 human values, all previously agreed to by experts in the discipline. The results produced recommendations for the use of forty human values associated with ten motivational values, and proposed a model for the structure of relationships between types of motivational values which is widely used in human values research^14-18. In the third section of each survey consumers were asked how often they had consumed either of the two studied cheeses in the previous three days.

Results

Discussion

In contrast to Ocosingo Bola cheese, Chiapas cream cheese exhibited a direct influence of human values on consumption. This indicates that consumers of Chiapas cream cheese used intangible as well as tangible attributes to express the influence of values on cheese consumption, with tangible attributes functioning as mediators. The motivational values most involved in affecting preference were those of Power, Universalism, Benevolence, Hedonism, and Security. In Schwartz’s scheme the values of Universalism and Benevolence are adjacent those of Tradition and Conformity, while Hedonism and Power are somewhat opposed to them; this arrangement is to be expected in a traditional community¹². These results coincide with previous studies of red meat which show that human consumers use intangible attributes (symbolic and affective) when making choices²¹. In Brazil, for instance, red meat was found to symbolize social hierarchy and its consumption was linked to the values of Power²⁰. However, in Australia meat consumption was reported to be linked to values associated with Universalism, Power and Security in that people who had a positive attitude towards red meat consumption expressed values related to Power and Security as being important²¹. In a study done in China of healthy beverages the motivational values identified in a consumer sample were Security, Hedonism, Benevolence and Achievement¹⁷. Comparisons can be made of the structures of human and motivational values between consumers from different cultures. For example, consumers who give priority to the values of Conservation and Tradition normally place Achievement and Hedonism in opposition, while consumers who prefer red meat prioritize the values of Power and Achievement over Benevolence and Universalism^16,17,20,21.

For Ocosingo Bola cheese the influence of consumer human values fully employed tangible attributes to manifest preference. The main motivational values included in this indirect route were Benevolence, Safety and Hedonism; the first two are adjacent to the values of Tradition and Conformity whereas the third is their opposite^12,13. Ocosingo Bola cheese exhibited some similarities with Chapingo cheese²⁸, in that both types have Benevolence as an important motivational value in the selected regression variables, and they manifest the same (indirect) route of the influence of human values on cheese consumption.

Conclusions and implications

Benevolence and Security were the most important motivational values in common between the two consumer samples. Chiapas cream cheese consumers also manifested the values of Power and Universalism, while Ocosingo Bola cheese consumers manifested Hedonism as a supplementary value. The influence of the human values of Chiapanecan consumers on preference for Chiapas cream cheese was direct, meaning they used intangible attributes (affective and symbolic), in addition to tangible ones, in a holistic evaluation of cheese consumption. For Ocosingo Bola cheese, the influence of human values on cheese preference was indirect, indicating that consumers valued only its tangible attributes and gave it a utilitarian meaning. These results imply that during consumption of different varieties of traditional Mexican cheeses the identification of direct or indirect routes can provide information on cheese preference based on parameters beyond mere tangible attributes. This presents the possibility of differentiating and characterizing traditional cheeses based on the type of influence human values exert on consumer preference. These findings can be applied in marketing of cheeses by incorporating distinctive symbols on product labels and planning marketing strategies for sociodemographically differentiated consumer groups to promote greater affective engagement with regional cheeses. In addition to evaluating cheese tangible attributes, identification of the symbolic meanings manifested by consumers towards traditional Mexican cheeses needs to be done using an integrative and interdisciplinary approach.