  Honey consumption in Russia has been actively growing in recent years due to
the increasing interest in healthy and environment-friendly food products.
However, it remains an open question which characteristics of honey are the
most significant for consumers and, more importantly, from an economic point of
view, for which of them consumers are willing to pay. The purpose of this study
was to investigate the role of sensory characteristics in assessing consumers'
willingness to pay for honey and to determine which properties and
characteristics "natural" honey should have to encourage repeated purchases by
target consumers. The study involved a behavioral experiment that included a
pre-test questionnaire, blind tasting of honey samples, an in-room test to
assess perceived quality, and a closed auction using the
Becker-DeGroote-Marschak method. As the result, it was revealed that the
correspondence of the expected sensations to the actual taste, taste intensity,
duration of the aftertaste and the sensations of tickling in the throat had a
positive effect on both the perceived quality of the product and the
willingness to pay for it, while perception of off-flavors or added sugar had a
negative impact. Using factor analysis, we have combined 21 sensory
characteristics of honey into eight components that were sufficient to obtain
the flavor portrait of honey by Russian consumers.
