Zdenka Kádeková

Milk consumption is a very important part of consumers’ daily diet due to its positive health effect. The purpose of the paper is to evaluate the market of milk and dairy products. The paper analyzes the development of milk consumption in V4 countries, which was described by using regression functions. The data were obtained from the statistical offices of chosen countries. Based on the achieved results it was found that in Slovakia and Hungary milk consumption is very low, but in the Czech Republic and Poland consumption is recorded in the range of recommended doses and is sufficient. Looking to the future, based on the described trend of consumption, it is possible to assume that the situation in the Slovak Republic will be accompanied by unfavorable developments and in comparison with other V4 countries, Slovakia will consume the least milk and dairy products per capita. Moreover, a questionnaire survey orientated on the level of milk consumption and consumer behavior was conducted on the sample of 518 respondents. Average Slovak consumers consume daily 1 glass of milk, 20 g of cheese, 70 g of curds, and 250 g of sour-milk or other dairy product. Depending on the level of consumption, 3 consumer segments were defined for which different consumer behavior was identified, especially in the issue of factor assessment. In general, however, it is concluded that the quality and price of milk and dairy products are crucial for consumers to make their choice.

Acknowledgment
This paper is supported by the Operational Program Integrated Infrastructure within the project: Demand-driven research for the sustainable and innovative food, Drive4SIFood 313011V336, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund.

Although there were many consumer behavior studies, their focus was on traditional brands. Despite that, their conclusions and recommendations can serve as a model for private label research. This paper aims to find out the influence of packaging on consumer purchasing decisions in the yoghurt segment. Attention was drawn to Slovak consumers under the age of 25 years. To achieve the aim, survey, structured questionnaire (549 randomly chosen respondents) and blind test (20 respondents) methods were used. For a deeper analysis, four hypotheses were set out and tested using statistical methods of Pearsons’ Chi-Square Test, Friedman test, Mantel-Haenszel Chi-Square Test, Phi Coefficient, Cramer’s V Coefficient and correspondence analysis. The results proved that almost 58% of respondents bought private labels sporadically, over 20% of respondents bought them multiple times a week, and over 18% of respondents bought them once a week. In terms of perceived quality, it can be said that quality of private label products is perceived as good and adequate, they evoke impression of adequate quality at a reasonable price, the decisive factor for their purchase is a combination of reasonable price and quality, and the reasons not to buy are high price, low quality and lack of information about the producer. Regarding the impact of packaging on respondents’ purchasing decisions, it is found that less than 34% of respondents believe that packaging of private label products is unattractive, and up to 33% of respondents think that packaging does not affect them.

Acknowledgement
The paper was supported by the research project GA SUA No. 8/2019 “Private labels as the alternative to purchase”, which is solved at the Department of Marketing and Trade, Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra.