Application of health and taste attitude scales in Serbia

Abstract

Purpose – Consumers’ attitudes, especially their attitudes towards health and taste, are significant in understanding and predicting dietary behaviour. In this research, Health and Taste Attitude Scales (HTAS) developed by Roininen et al. in 1999 for measuring health and taste attitudes of consumers, were applied in Serbia. The purpose of this paper is to find out whether the same sub-scales can be identified as in HTAS applications abroad, to test the predictive validity of HTAS and to investigate respondents’ health and taste attitudes in the context of their socio-demographic characteristics. Design/methodology/approach – Primary data were gathered by means of focus groups and a survey – structured personal interviews by using a questionnaire. The research was conducted in July 2013 with 300 respondents participating. Findings – The same sub-scales were identified in Serbian consumer research as in HTAS applications abroad. Generally, all the Health sub-scales are useful predictors of consumption of several types of food perceived as healthy, while the Taste sub-scales (except Pleasure) are good predictors of consumption of both, food considered as tasty and food considered as not tasty. Out of socio-demographic variables, only age showed statistically significant correlations to some of the Taste sub-scales. Practical implications – Several recommendations for companies operating on the domestic food market were given in this paper. Originality/value – The first application of HTAS in Serbia, generally characterized by scarce food consumer research, was shown in this paper. It is also the first application of HTAS in a Southern European country.

New Market Segmentation Knowledge in the Function of Bioeconomy Development in Serbia

“…On the other hand, eating out was not widely recognized as social event just as preparing food was not understood as a task for the whole family. The most important dimensions are consistent with previous research conducted in domestic conditions (Grubor et al 2015).…”

“…Although both, conservative and adventurous food consumers rank health among their priorities, this does not necessarily translate into consumption or preference to organic food, which is often associated with health (Hughner et al 2007). As for the conservative food consumers this partly resembles to the results of previous research whereby consumers in Serbia predominantly manifested their general interest in health by consuming functional food, while frequency of consumption of organic food is correlated only with their interest in natural products (Grubor et al 2015).…”

Factors that Influence the Perceived Healthiness of Food—Review

“…Table 1 clearly shows that numerous factors influence consumers when assessing the healthiness of a product. In our literature analysis, we categorized these factors as follows: Communicated information [ 26 , 27 , 34 , 35 , 37 , 47 , 60 , 62 , 65 , 73 , 74 , 77 ]; The shape and colour of the product packaging [ 23 , 25 , 28 , 32 , 33 , 43 , 61 , 66 , 70 , 71 ]; The ingredients of the product [ 24 , 29 , 39 , 40 , 49 , 57 , 64 , 76 ]; Product category [ 54 , 61 , 69 , 70 , 75 , 78 ]; Organic origin of the product [ 5 , 31 , 42 , 45 , 46 , 48 , 51 , 55 , 68 ]...…”

Natural Sweeteners: The Relevance of Food Naturalness for Consumers, Food Security Aspects, Sustainability and Health Impacts

“…In their works, Lusk et al [ 63 ] saw that INF increased the probability of selecting non-clone or non-hormone milk as opposed to the clone or hormone variety. Many research works undertaken in different countries have revealed that INF significantly affects eating healthy [ 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 ], organic [ 69 ] and traditional foods [ 46 , 70 ], and eating unhealthy [ 66 , 67 ] and convenience foods [ 71 ]. Roininen and Tuorila [ 72 ] and Zandstra et al [ 73 ] found that INF did not affect unhealthy or healthy eating.…”