Food Values, Benefits and Their Influence on Attitudes and Purchase Intention: Evidence Obtained at Fast-Food Hamburger Restaurants

Abstract

This paper analyzes the effects of: (i) Food values on their related benefits (hedonic and utilitarian); (ii) both kinds of benefits on attitudes toward eating hamburgers; and (iii) attitudes on purchase intention. To this end, we adapted the food values scale to the context of fast-food hamburger restaurants. Data were collected from a survey of 512 Mexican consumers and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results show that the strongest influences are those exerted by food values, first, on hedonic benefits and, second, on utilitarian benefits. In contrast, the weakest influence is that exerted by utilitarian benefits on attitudes, followed by that exerted by hedonic benefits on attitudes. Among other findings, this study highlights the importance consumers give to the taste and safety of food, as well as the greater importance given to hedonic benefits compared to utilitarian ones. These findings have several important implications for managers in the industry.

#SupportLocal: how online food delivery services leveraged the COVID-19 pandemic to promote food and beverages on Instagram

“…Unbranded product imagery appeared in the top three marketing strategies for all the investigated OFD platforms. The 'sight' or appearance of food has been suggested to be a high food value with impacts on purchase intention (51) and can result in higher levels of consumption of the food/product (52) . Taken together, the imagery of foods is a powerful tool to market poor nutritional quality food and has significant impacts on consumer behaviours.…”

Comparing Models with Positive Anticipated Emotions, Food Values, Attitudes and Subjective Norms as Influential Factors in Fast-Food Purchase Intention during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Two Channels: Restaurants and Mobile Apps

“…To this end, we followed several studies and emphasized purchase intention as an important factor [9][10][11]. The literature review confirmed that several Sustainability 2021, 13, 12857 2 of 16 variables from the Theory of Planned Behavior (hereafter TPB) influence food purchase intention [12][13][14][15][16][17]. According to Ellison et al (2021) [18], there is an ongoing shift toward online food purchasing, while Choi et al (2021) [10] affirmed that more people are using food delivery apps.…”

A Review of the Literature on Food Values and Their Potential Implications for Consumers’ Food Decision Processes

“…In the north of America, another study [27] revealed that Canadian consumers emphasized taste, safety, nutrition, and price as the most preferred food values in relation to nanotechnology foods. In Mexico, other scholars focused on the behavioral attitudes of fast food consumers [28,29] and found that food values and positive anticipated emotions impacted people's attitudes toward the brand, which then impacted consumers' purchase intentions. In their studies, it was revealed that the positive anticipated emotions exerted a greater impact than food values, thus suggesting that the best method of boosting purchase intention is by improving attitude toward the brand rather than attitude toward eating a hamburger [28,29].…”

“…In Mexico, other scholars focused on the behavioral attitudes of fast food consumers [28,29] and found that food values and positive anticipated emotions impacted people's attitudes toward the brand, which then impacted consumers' purchase intentions. In their studies, it was revealed that the positive anticipated emotions exerted a greater impact than food values, thus suggesting that the best method of boosting purchase intention is by improving attitude toward the brand rather than attitude toward eating a hamburger [28,29]. In general, it was observed that fast food consumers assigned more importance to the hedonic than to the utilitarian benefits of food [28,29].…”

“…In their studies, it was revealed that the positive anticipated emotions exerted a greater impact than food values, thus suggesting that the best method of boosting purchase intention is by improving attitude toward the brand rather than attitude toward eating a hamburger [28,29]. In general, it was observed that fast food consumers assigned more importance to the hedonic than to the utilitarian benefits of food [28,29].…”