A preliminary study of consumer preferences and price/quality relationships of rice in Ghana

Abstract

This preliminary study of consumer preferences and price/quality relationships for milled rice complements other studies of post-harvest practices, post-harvest losses and techno-economic assessment of rice processing enterprises being conducted concurrently. The study objectives were to: (a) determine consumer preferences for milled rice with due regard to local and imported rice (b) identify the major forms in which rice is consumed in the study areas and determine if any special varietal preference exists for these forms (c) conduct a preliminary determination of relationships between perceived quality characteristics and prices.The study covered Accra, Kumasi and Tamale Metropolitan areas. These are the three largest cities in Ghana with Tamale being a major producing and consuming centre of locally produced rice whilst Accra and Kumasi are major consuming centres for imported rice. Two sets of questionnaires were designed, one for consumers and the other for traders. These were pretested and administered to 152 and 64 consumers and traders respectively in the study areas. It is believed the results are fairly representative of consumers and traders in the three cities