Thai consumer behavior and attitude: effect of gender and degree of Food Neophobia on product liking and food related life style

Abstract

Food Neophobia Scale (FNS) is important for product development since it might indicate consumer’s purchasing decision of novel food products. This study was aimed to investigate whether FNS can identify product preference and consumer behaviors (Food Related Life Style (FRL)). Thai consumers were screened using FNS in order to have balanced number of consumer who has food neophilic, neutral, and neophobic. Each consumer responded to the questionnaire consisted of demographic, preference test, and FRL scale. According to the preference test, Flavored Brownie, Meangkam rice bar, Core pineapple and cream cheese pie, and Fang herbal juice, were significantly different by the highest liking means of all four product ideas obtained from neophobic consumer. Thus, it might be the evidence to show that food neophobia cannot predict whether consumer will like the new product. The finding from the FRL showed that there were 2 categories significantly different (Novelty and Looking for new ways). On the other hand, the preference score of male and female was not significantly different in all ten product ideas. However, there are 5 out of 23 lifestyle dimensions in FRL found significantly different by female had higher average Likert scores in Importance of product information[5.4, 4.8], Attitudes to advertising[5.1, 4.4], Specialty shops[4.8, 4.2], and Social relationships [5.5, 4.9]. Male was only more positive towards Snacks versus meals [4.3, 3.7]. And the finding from this study suggests that FNS may not be an effective way to predict product preference but it might help us understand consumer behavior and attitude