The Role of Nutrition Advantages in the Comsumer's Food Choices

Abstract

Discoveries and research results of the last century confirm that nutrition has a significant impact on the human health. Being aware of this, consumers in developed countries devote greater and greater care to preserving their health, obtaining more and more information about healthy life-style. Instead of treating diseases, they focus on prevention. This tendency affects their relationship towards foods too, as they look for products that they consider healthier. However, a question arises: what do the consumers consider „healthy foods”? Foods that are considered healthy by the scientists or the ones that are showed to be healthy in advertisements? Which nutritional benefits are recognized by the people and which are the ones that are not known at all? And after all, what is the level of the Hungarian consumers’ health consciousness, and what role does the „wholesomeness” of foods play at choosing a product. Authors try to answer these questions using the results of a country-wide questionnaire research involving 1000 people. Results show that health occupies the first place in the order of societal values. In this context it can be mentioned that 43% of the respondents describe their health condition as average, 32% of them as better than average, and 5% of them as definitely good. Only 10% of the respondents say that their state of health is worse than average, and 2% state that it is definitely bad. It shows that the Hungarian consumers consider their health condition as much better than the real situation showed by statistical data. This may have a remarkable impact on the nutritional habits and the recognition of the necessity of healthier nutrition. Answers obtained from another question show that for the consumers the following product attributes are of the greatest importance at the food choice: freshness, tastiness, excellent quality, appetizingness, purity (being chemical free and harmless) and long shelf life. Definite nutritional benefits such as low fat or energy content and enrichment in mineral compounds are less or not at all important for the consumers. In this work was to establish a quality model, wich can be successfully used in the marketing of milk and meat products. Our tasks were to define „quality”, to determine the components of product quality (quality image) and the key characteristics of the products. The key characteristic is the parameter of the product that leads the consumer to choose the product (brand) in the end of his decision. It is depending on the components of quality – that is the characteristics of the product –, that how much the product is attractive for the consumer. The more attractive, or we can say, the more useful and valuable these characteristics are for the consumer, the more marketable the product is. Based on the most recent researches the authors came to the conclusion that the quality of food and within it the milk and meat products is determined by five different types of elements. These are the technical/technological, the usage, the nourishment, the joyment and the symbolic elements, which alltogether form the so called functional quality. The so called quality image however, is the resultant of the effect of the elements, which is a subjective picture of the product in the consumers’ mind, so that the product image. The following can be stated from the model: the technical/technological quality contains the physical, chemical, microbiological-hygienic and organoleptic properties. They together provide guarantee for safety consumption. The usage elements concern the concrete process of usage, such as the activities needed for consumption, e.g. the way of opening, preparation and serving the food. The function of the usage elements is to improve the practicability of the product: to save time, to enable easy, convenient, and economical use. This definition thus keeps the concerning results of the previous model, but it narrows the range of the usage advantages. Price belongs here, too, as a way of reducing costs, though due to its special role – if we speak of psychological price – it can rank among the symbolic components. The function of the enjoyment elements is to provide pleasure (directly with the consumption or purchase) and to achieve satisfaction and repletion. The enjoyment value is an important indicator of food quality, which is also discussed by the literature separately emphasising its importance. It is also known that in the developed countries foods not only serve to satisfy the maintenance requirements, but rather are the source of enjoyment. From that aspect, it is necessary to separate the enjoyment elements in the model. The basic function of the nutritional elements is to preserve the nutrients in the product and/or to improve its healthiness thus maintaining human health. (Food safety could be discussed here because of its direct contact with human health but considering its nature we rather rank it among the technical/technological elements.) The nutritional advantages (product properties) known from the previous model are responsible for filling the function of healthiness. In the end, the so-called symbolic elements should be mentioned. The function of these elements are self-expression, self-realisation and self-soothing. These can be found on the highest level of Maslow’s consumption-pyramid, containing hardly conceivable, emphatic elements that are related to the symbol-consumption. The reasons for consumers to search for symbolic elements are different, e.g. cherishing, soothing, personal involvement, symbolizing status, expressing self-image. It is the task of marketing to give the products symbolic content, and the tools for it can be the brand name, the style of marketing communication, the message of advertisement, the shape of the product, the brand value, or in general, the tools of the marketing mix. In our opinion, these properties are part of the quality just like the nutrients or the usage advantages, as these create the perceived image of the product. Moreover, their role in the purchase decisions is getting more determining, especially in case of complex products. The described quality components and their properties together form the image of the product. Additionally, the marketing tools and other impulses received from the market also play an important role but these can be separated from the product and are not directly connected to it.