The Consumer Types and the Needs for Ingredients Information at the Restaurant

With the Special Emphasis on the Family Restaurant

Abstract

This study aimed to classify consumers into several types based on their concerns and attitudesabout meals at home and restaurants and to find corresponding information needs for the ingredients.
First of all, there were four conceptual factors that were found as motivation components by thefactor analysis. There were (1) Food safety and health, (2) Rationally saving a cooking time, (3) Preference-first and trying maximum satisfaction, and (4) Economy priority. Then, based on thecluster analysis, we obtained three behavioral attitude types of consumers, such as (a) Insisting highclass food safety and health, (b) Seeking convenience, and (c) Price-orientation.
The type (a) consumers had the strong consciousness about food safety and healthful food andneeded the particular account of ingredients. The type (b) ones showed the interest in thenutritional balance of the ingredient, although their awareness was relatively weak. The type (c) ones did not show significant wants for the information about ingredients.
Based on the result of this study, we could conclude that there were several types of consumers'attitudes toward dining at restaurants, and the necessary information was required to be provided by the restaurant for each type consumers. Thus, restaurants would have to consider contents of theinformation as one of the factors to promote their sales.