5.2 Understanding food choice

Food choice is an area of research that has expanded a great deal in recent years and whose findings need to be brought into product development. Food choice is caused by the interaction of the person and the buying or eating environment, both the state of the environment and the individual affecting the choice (Bell and Meiselman, 1995). Buying fish and chips served on fine china in a high-class fish restaurant, or buying them wrapped in newspaper from a fish and chip shop changes the interaction between the consumer and the product.

Consumer food choice is complex; some of the variables are shown in Fig. 5.4.

Fig. 5.4 Interaction of the individual and the environment in food choice
(Source: After Bell and Meiselman, 1995).
(- click to enlarge)

Food choice can be broken down to the pattern of purchase or rejection of a product, the needs and wants underlying this choice, the psychological attitudes underlying the needs and wants, the effects of the society and the culture. Some important factors for the individual consumer are:

     perception of ethnicity and social group;

     involvement with food;

     habitual behaviour;

     food stereotypes, expectations, likes/dislikes.