Determinants of Consumer Demand Across Different Honey Products in Kampala District

Abstract

Honey is a bee's product that stands as one of the natural resource of significant importance socially and economically. in the recent years, human consumption of honey and honey-products such as honey syrups and composite-products has become common among the people in different countries including Uganda. Despite the use of it in Uganda, less attention has been given to understanding consumer preferences and none of the previous studies has paid attention to specifically quantify the emerging pattern of honey consumption. the study aimed at analyzing the factors affecting consumer demand of honey products with the focus of exploring the socio economic and demographic of honey product consumers, determining the present quantity of honey consumed and examining the factors influencing honey product consumption in Kampala.

To achieve the above, a multi-stage sampling technique was used and involved purposely sampling Kawempe division because of it,s high population and a random sample of 8 households from each of the nine villages. this resulted into a total of 72 households that were used for analysis in this study. Data was collected, sorted and analyzed using computer software known as SPSS. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize households and determine the quantity of honey. A multiple linear regression was used to determine the factors that determine consumer demand for honey and honey products. The results reveal that over 50% of the households purchased honey once in a month and on average 1.63 litres of honey was consumed per month. the results further that the quantity of honey consumed increases with the years of schooling, income household, and the healing nature of honey and is statistically significant at 5% level. In contrast, the quantity of honey consumed significantly decreases with the household size at 10% level. therefore, the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the households are important in determining honey consumption and focus should be put in promoting education, campaign awareness of the medical role of honey and increasing income generating activties for the households.