Factors Affecting Olive Oil Consumption: The Case of Urban and Rural Areas of the Country

The importance of using olive oil in terms of nutritional and economic value, makes it necessary to study the factors affecting its consumption among urban and rural areas of the country in order to plan or evaluate food and health policies.
Utilizing the economic and demographic data obtained from rural and urban households over the period of 2004-2015, which was extracted from the Iranian Statistics Center, the impact of price and non-price factors in olive oil consumption was evaluated based on the pool data analysis.
Findings: F Limer test showed the superiority of the pool model on the panel model. Accordingly, the model was estimated using generalized least square (GLS) according to the existence of heterogeneity of variance. Based on the estimated coefficients in both urban and rural household patterns, non-price factors such as age, educational level, and employment shared more in oil consumption in comparison with prices and budgets.
Attention should be paid to such policies as the awareness of the community about olive oil, and the focus of education on all people in society with different levels of education, such as public education in schools, universities, and health homes, along with improving policies for organizing deficiencies in the distribution and sale of these products in such a way as to allow more access by the various classes of people to this type of oil.