README file

Data Set Title: “MED-LINKS WP1 T1.3 Consumer Attitudes Focus Group”
Data Set Author/s:
Camanzi, Luca (University of Bologna), ORCID 0000-0003-0738-6279
Ahmadi Kaliji, Sina (University of Bologna), ORCID 0000-0002-2609-3706

Data Set Contributor/s:
Elshazly, Ahmed (Heliopolis University for Sustainable Development, Egypt) 
Fouad, Hager (Heliopolis University for Sustainable Development, Egypt) 
Michailidis, Anastasios (Department of Agricultural Economics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece) ORCID 0000-0002-7560-4365 
Charatsari, Chrysanthi (Department of Agricultural Economics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece) ORCID 0000-0002-9160-3469 
Lioutas, Evagelos D. (Department of Supply Chain Management, International Hellenic University, Katerini- Greece) ORCID 0000-0003-3784-9553 
De Rosa, Marcello (Department of Economics and law, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio) ORCID 0000-0002-5053-6861 
Francescone, Martina (Department of Economics and law, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio) ORCID 0000-0003-4153-8942 

Data Set Contact Person/s: Camanzi, Luca (University of Bologna), luca.camanzi@unibo.it 
Data Set License: this data set is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Publication Year: 2024
Project Info: MED-LINKS Data-enabled Business Models and Market Linkages Enhancing, project ID 1591, funded by the PRIMA (Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area) programme, 2020 Section 2, -1480197258 https://prima-med.org/faq/; https://mel.cgiar.org/projects/med-links.
Data set Contents

The data set consists of:
•	2 documents in .pdf format 
“MED-LINKS_WP1-T1.3_Consumer_Attitudes_Focus_Group_DiscussionGuide.pdf
“MED-LINKS_WP1-T1.3_Consumer_Attitudes_FocusGroup_Reports.pdf”
•	1 tabular file saved in .csv format
“MED-LINKS_WP1-T1.3_Consumer_Attitudes_FocusGroup_Reports. csv”
•	1 README file 
“MED-LINKS_WP1-T1.3_Consumer_attitudes_ FocusGroup_README.rtf”

Data set Documentation

•	Abstract
This dataset, developed as part of the MED-LINKS (Data-enabled Business Models and Market Linkages Enhancing) project, financed by Section 2, 2020 of the Prima Programme (Horizon 2020), contains the reports collected between February to April 2023 through some Focus Groups conducted on consumer attitudes and preferences for fruit and vegetables in Egypt, Greece and Italy.

Content of the files: 
•	file“MED-LINKS_WP1-T1.3_Consumer_attitudes_FocusGroup_DiscussionGuide.pdf contains the discussion guide
•	files“MED-LINKS_WP1-T1.3_Consumer_Attitudes_FocusGroup_Reports.pdf” and “MED-LINKS_WP1-T1.3_Consumer_Attitudes_FocusGroup_Reports.csv” contain the reports of the focus groups.

•	File specifics
To create the .csv files, “Microsoft Excel” version 2403 (Microsoft 365 for enterprise) was used, with the following specifics:
•Character set Europa occidentale (Windows-1252/WinLatin1)
•Field delimiter « , » (comma)
•

•	Methodologies 
The qualitative research approach was chosen on the basis of eight Focus Groups (FGs) that took place in three different Mediterranean countries - Egypt, Greece and Italy.
The participants were characterized by different demographic groups and allowed for the exploration of different perspectives and experiences. During these sessions, consumers had the opportunity to participate in discussions on topics outlined in the guideline of questions provided. The duration of the FG sessions varied, approximately one and a half to two hours.
The questioning techniques were varied and included closed-ended questions (Ouimet et al., 2004), reflective recall questions, laddering techniques (Rietz and Maedche, 2023), and word association techniques (Ares et al., 2008) in which participants were asked to share their immediate thoughts or images triggered by a particular stimulus.
Using thematic analysis, we analysed the data from the participants' discussions based on the “card sorting” technique” (Best et al., 2022; Morente-Molinera et al., 2019). In this technique, which is often used in qualitative research to organise and categorise data, participants were given a set of cards, each representing an option following the relevant questions. These cards served as response options to initiate the discussions within the FGs and to simplify the results collection process. 

•	List of variables 
The variables used in the study were selected based on consumers’ attitudes and preferences regarding the information on the label such as nutritional content, geographical origin, shelf life, presence of environmentally friendly and information (Haws et al., 2014; Peiró Signes et al., 2023); environmental concerns in production such as deforestation, neglect of natural resource conservation, non-recyclable packaging, high carbon emissions and wasteful water consumption (Grunert et al., 2014; Isaak and Lentz, 2020); attitudes and trust in certifications such as satisfaction with existing certifications, trust in existing certifications and feelings towards the environmental concept as label (Nygaard, 2023; Rupprecht et al., 2020).