Abstract

Despite the interest in studying the purchase behaviour of ethnic minorities, the majority of investigations concentrate on immigrants and not on indigenous local peoples, which are of importance in Chile and the rest of America. Considering the increase in food imports into Chile, a personal survey was carried out of 400 mapuche and 400 non mapuche persons to determine the importance of the country of origin in the purchase decision for beef in people of different ethnic groups in the La Araucanía and Metropolitan Regions (Chile). Conjoint analysis revealed that country of origin was slightly less important than price (44.4% and 55.6%), with no signifcant differences by ethnic group, but a possible regional ethno-centrist effect was detected. Using analysis of hierarchical conglomerates, two principal consumer profles were distinguished: the majority group (62.5%) assigned greater importance to the price, while the second group (28.1%) assigned greater importance to the origin. The segments presented differences by region of residence, socio-economic group and person who purchases the food. Thus from the results of this research it may be concluded that the importance of the country of origin as an attribute in the purchase decision process for beef is not associated with the ethnic origin of the consumer, considering the principal indigenous people in Chile, the Mapuche, but it is associated with the region of residence.