5.4.1 Identifying consumer needs and wants

As we have seen, there are many factors influencing how and what people eat and buy from the basic hunger pangs to the need for prestige, health. They can be summarised as shown in Fig. 5.6, which has been adapted for food eating from Maslow's hierarchy of needs (Bareham, 1995).

Fig. 5.6 Consumer needs and wants in foods (Source: After Bareham, 1995).
(- click to enlarge)

In Fig. 5.6, the basic physical needs are shown in the two blocks, holding up the two wants of belonging and love, and esteem. Above these are values or intellectual needs. What is defined as a need and a want varies from person to person, once the physiological, safety and convenience needs have been fulfilled. In Fig. 5.6 a division is shown between the physical needs and the psychological wants, which may not be true for either individual products or individual people. Some people's wants are other people's needs, for example some mothers may feel a need to prepare/serve rich food that indicates care and loving for others; other mothers may see no need for food that gives energy as the children are already overweight and have a sedentary life style. Deciding what are the relevant needs and wants is a difficult decision in building the product concept. Also having satisfied the basic needs, some people may want belonging and love and some esteem. These are shown side by side in this diagram because neither is more important than the other in food eating. The top need is based on acquiring knowledge so that both the eating pattern and the selection of specific foods is based on knowledge of all the needs and wants in Fig. 5.6. This is gaining in importance as people acquire more nutritional and health knowledge.

Lindeman and Stark (1999) studied with young and middle-aged women in Finland:

     food choices (health, weight control, pleasure, ideological reasons);

     personal strivings (understanding the world, ecological welfare,
        slimness, appearance);

     magical beliefs (lay concepts on food contamination and other everyday
        food problems);

     appearance and weight dissatisfaction, and symptoms of eating disorders.

These consumers clustered into six groups: gourmets, health fosterers, ideological eaters, health dieters, distressed dieters and indifferents. Health concerns were of moderate importance for gourmets and indifferents, whereas the remaining four clusters rated health as a very important factor in food selection. Ideological reasons were high for ideological eaters, health fosterers and distressed dieters. Ideological food choice motives were best predicted by vegetarianism, but also included magical beliefs about food and health, and strivings for self-understanding and environmental welfare. Pleasure was high for the health fosterers and the gourmets. The health fosterers are an interesting group for the future as they are combining pleasure with health and ideological reasons.

In a study of adult men, Tepper et al. (1997) found that dietary restraint was a consistent predictor of food choice. Restraint influenced the reported consumption of all food groups except desserts; nutrition and food beliefs played only modest roles in food choice. Men showing high restraint were less likely to consume whole-fat dairy foods, eggs, beef and cured meats, fast foods, fats and oils, and regular soda. There have been and will continue to be changes in consumers' concerns about food and health (Ruff, 1995), and it is important to differentiate between the long-term changes and the fashions stimulated by the media.

In the case of the Asian consumer, the top three needs are affiliation, admiration and status. Personal needs in Asia are subordinate to social needs; as a consequence the highest level of satisfaction is derived not from the actions directed at the self but more from the reactions of others. Affiliation is the acceptance of an individual as a member of a group, admiration is earned through acts that demand respect of others, and status comes from the esteem of society at large (Schütte and Ciarante, 1998).

An example of all levels of needs and wants is shown in Table 5.4, which outlines the reasons given for not eating meat.


Table 5.4 Reasons for reduced meat consumption during the 1980s and 1990s

Animal welfare Moral reasons associated with the view that modern animal production is ethically unacceptable. Environment Moral concern that certain features of animal production harm the environment and have undesirable ecological consequences. Health Concern about one's own health; (1) avoiding natural compounds: cholesterol and saturated fats, (2) avoiding added compounds: hormones, antibiotics, pathogens, (3) avoiding specific health problems: cancer, hypertension. Social priorities Conform or adapt to the life style or standards of friends, relations or other influential people. One's own body image is an important example. Displeasure Rejection from sensory qualities: sight of meat and associated blood or blood-like drip; sticky texture of meat; taste and elastic mouth-feel of meat when eaten. Metaphysical For spiritual, religious, doctrinal or ethnic reasons. Expense Abstain because of cost. Inconvenience or inappropriate presentation Do not fit into 'light' informal meals, difficult or slow to cook at home, inappropriate for takeaway trade.

Source: After Gregory, 1997.


This is an interesting list as it covers practically all the general reasons why people do not eat specific foods. In product development, the meat industry has attempted to reduce these reasons for not eating meat by dealing with the following problems:

     Animal welfare - change from caged to free-range chickens.

     Environment - reduction in forests cleared for animal rearing.

     Health - fat-trimmed lean meat; organic meat.

     Social priorities - barbecue steak, frozen turkeys.

     Displeasure - absorbent pads in meat trays, plastic wrapped trays,
        meat tenderisation.

     Metaphysical - halal killing for Muslims, small pigs for Samoan
        celebrations.

     Expense - reducing costs of chicken production and therefore price.

     Inconvenience - easy-to-cook products such as stir-fry chicken, minced
        pork.

This list shows the variety of consumer needs that trigger changes in the total product concept. The factors in food choice are complex and vary according to consumer and product. In developing a model for food choice, Furst et al. (1996) found that ideals, personal factors, resources, social contexts and food context were major influences on food choice. These influences led to the development of personal systems for making food choices that incorporated value negotiations and behavioural strategies. Sensory perception, price considerations, health and nutrition, convenience, social factors and quality were all considered as part of value negotiations, and strategies were developed to simplify food choice. The variation with different product types was shown in a retail study in Britain (Beharrell and Denison, 1991) which found the attribute importance from highest to lowest was as follows:

     Preserves: brand and quality; price; variety and size.

     Bakery products: health; freshness, brand and price; variety.

     Dairy products: health; brand and quality; price; variety.

     Cereals: health and brand; price, size and variety.

     Soups: brand; variety; price; health.

     Fresh meat: quality; presentation, variety, health and price.

Health was of major importance for bakery, dairy and cereal products, but very low for soup and not at all for preserves. Fresh meat was different from the other products - quality was supremely important, other attributes were considerations with little between them. But as described in Table 5.4 in reasons for not eating meat, there are other factors not included in the retail study, which do affect meat buying.

Introducing completely new foods can present problems. For example, Buisson (1995) stated that consumers do not understand functional foods, and they needed to be led gently into such products and the medical benefits not stressed. 'The relative naivete' of the consumer over the links between diet and health is a major impediment to product development of functional foods.' He stressed that great care is going to be necessary in involving consumers in such developments. This is true of all major technological developments in the food industry; the new products based on it need to be developed so that the consumer sees a major health benefit without any major worry about safety.

These various studies show some of the complexity of identifying the consumer needs and wants as a basis for product development.

Think Break In the USA and some other Western diets, the level of fat is too high. Much product development in the past 20 years has been to reduce fat in the diet either by developing low-fat products (Nestle et al., 1998) or by fat replacement (Mela, 1996). 1. Compare the needs and wants of the consumer when buying and using     butter and low-fat margarine. What attributes in low-fat margarine could     cause the consumer to change or not change their food choice from     butter? 2. Butter is often used as flavouring in foods, for example vegetables and     sauces. Discuss why it is a popular flavouring, and what attributes a     new flavouring would need to replace butter. 3. Some meat is being replaced with tofu in a hamburger to reduce the fat     content and the meat content for consumers who are decreasing their     meat consumption. Identify the needs and wants of the consumers and     relate these to the attributes of the new style of hamburger.