Importance of breakfast choice factors
It is generally understood that breakfast is a very important source of energy needed for the whole day and, as a result, factors that could influence the quality and quantity of breakfast content, such as price itself and weight control, were rated unimportant by respondents. In addition, it was reported that sensory appeal was advanced in respondents’ decision-making process, suggesting that Taiwanese still place much emphasis on the value of fine foods. The insistence in delicacy is just a reflection of Traditional Chinese value. Nevertheless, the preparation of tasty food sometimes could inevitably contradict the emerging concept of healthy eating.
Just like the general progress of a country, people tend to be much more concerned about whether the product is affordable than its quality at the beginning of economic development. When the country becomes prosperous, the taste of foods is taken into account for those who can pay for delicacy. The capability to afford fine foods also serves as a symbol and show-off of economic affluence. When reaching the level of living in a developed country, people begin to be anxious about healthy eating due to the aggravation of modern diseases. The high mean rating of health factor in the present survey demonstrated that Taiwanese have cultivated ingrained health notion sharing with other developed countries in the world. In addition to Health factor, the advanced rank of Convenience factor showed one of the characteristics of modern lifestyle as well.
Moreover, the statement “good value for money” could imply many things, including perhaps deliciousness, healthiness, reasonable price, etc., even though the original FCQ attributed it solely to Price factor. In fact, the consideration that breakfast should be “good value for money” could indicate the combination of tradition values and current trends, suggesting that consumers are trying to fuse together all kinds of ideas, in both traditional and present areas.
Prescott et al. (2002) had administered a comparison of FCQ among Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia and New Zealand. In consequence, the rank order of most to least important food factors in Taiwan was Natural Content, Health, Weight Control, Convenience, Sensory Appeal, Mood, Price, Ethical Concern, and Familiarity. There was apparently a difference in ranked importance of Weight Control comparing with the findings of the present study, in which Weight Control was rated unimportant by respondents. The difference could imply that Taiwanese have different concerns between breakfast and common food. At breakfast, consumers do not appear to care about calories very much probably thanks to the belief that the upcoming series of
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activities in the whole day would consume the intake of calories at breakfast.
In Prescott et al.’s research, it was pointed out that Asian consumers tended to use middle values of the scale, in contrast to American consumers who used the extremes of the scale much more often. The low spread of scores for the different factors was also discovered in the present study.
Mean comparison between user and nonuser groups shows that there were major effects for factors regarding fiber and nutrient content, natural ingredients, low price, weight control, routine usage, and clearly marked origin. With the exception of low price, the user group gave higher ratings for all these factors that were to some extent consistent with the traits of RTE cereal. For example, the promotion message of Kellogg’s All Bran is that “every serving of Kellogg’s All-Bran provides at least three times more dietary fiber than the leading supplement, 40 percent or more of your daily recommended intake”. In comparison with other types of Chinese breakfast food, RTE cereal products are apparently tagged with ingredients, calories, origins, and expiration date, etc. The labeling of products allows consumers to feel safe and well informed, and could obtain a persuasive power that these products are dependable in many functions including in fiber content, natural ingredient, weight control, and manufacture origin, etc. The most interesting thing was that most breakfast choice factors were given higher ratings by the user group than by the nonuser group, suggesting that the user group could be more involved in breakfast-buying decision and thus rated choice factors more important.
In terms of gender, the two samples of respondents were significantly different in weight control, fiber content, natural ingredients, and low price. The exceptionally higher ratings given to low price by male than by female indicated the general belief that men are more economically practical than women.
In addition to gender, two age groups (parents and young adults) acted as independent variables in testing the differences in the importance of breakfast choice factors. There were significant differences in Health, Price, Natural Content, Weight Control, Ethical Concern, etc., reflecting that with the increase of age, consumers put more and more emphasis on the quality of what they eat. In fact, Health, Natural Content, and Weight Control could be converged into one notion whether the food is good for the human body. In addition, since parents usually need to prepare breakfast food for their young children as well, they could tend to consider more than those preparing solely for themselves, especially about factors that could significantly affect the growth of their children.
There was also significant age effect on the consideration whether breakfast food
“can be bought in shops close to where I live or work”. Older respondents’ higher tendency to take into account the accessibility to breakfast food purchase could imply
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that they suffer more time-squeezing pressures before arriving at workplace than younger ones.
Motivation to consume RTE cereal
The rank order of the most to the least important motives was:
(1) it is easy to prepare;
(2) it is good for health;
(3) it is convenient to purchase;
(4) it is safe and clean;
(5) it is delicious;
(6) it is cheap but good;
(7) it helps weight control;
(8) it is what I am familiar with.
Followed by benefit for health, the easiness to prepare received the most responses, suggesting that efficiency could be the buyer’s main reason to choose RTE cereal as breakfast, whereas less consideration was given to whether the product is tasty or not. As for those who are accustomed to eating breakfast at home, RTE cereal indeed provides great convenience, in that it only requires one preparation step, pouring milk into a bowl. In other words, it seems that it is not the product’s own properties that are valued by users, but the value-added characteristics, e.g. it allows buyers to feel safe, to spend little time preparing and obtaining it, and it complies with their healthy eating habits or objectives.
Factors regarding price and familiarity were rated the least important, corresponding to the result of importance of breakfast choice factors. Nevertheless, the low ratings of these factors do not necessarily reveal that they are unimportant for consumers. For example, it may be that familiarity per se is not an issue, in that by and large consumers have already been familiar with RTE cereal. Additionally, although it may be clear that consumers value the convenient and healthy properties of foods when buying RTE cereal, since they rated these above other factors, it is not at all certain whether this reflects the actual decision-making process or just an aspiration. In other words, it may be that consumers would like to choose foods with highly desirable healthy properties, even if another factor such as price is more influential in determining purchase choices. However, the fact that familiarity and price were not rated as being of primary importance may mean that these qualities are taken for granted, rather than being unimportant. Hence, while a relatively high ranking score clearly reflects importance of one form or another, a lower score is somewhat less easy to interpret.
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Reasons to reject RTE cereal
The rank order of the most to the least important reasons was:
(1) it is not delicious;
(2) it lacks flavor variety;
(3) I have no time for breakfast home;
(4) it is not what I am familiar with;
(5) it is too expensive;
(6) it is not convenient to purchase;
(7) it contains too much calories;
(8) it is not good for health.
The product’s own flavor was rated the most important reason why consumers reject to buy RTE cereal. This result shows that RTE cereal is faced with a basic problem of sheer sensory appeal, in that consumers refuse to buy it simply because they find its taste undesirable. This dislike could be due to ingrained habits, e.g.
Taiwanese still prefer warm Chinese-style foods for their breakfast, such as egg rolls, steamed and stuffed buns, soybean milk and fried sticks, and porridge etc, to RTE cereal mixed with cold milk. Another possibility is that some Taiwanese consumers have been used to breakfast food with salty taste, whereas RTE cereal products are more or less sweetened.
Following sensory appeal, the lack of variety is also one of the product’s basic properties. In some Western countries, RTE cereal is usually viewed as a type of staples, and thus is expected as a routine food that will not be changed regularly.
Unlike the U.S. consumers, Taiwanese consumers are used to changing their breakfast content daily thanks to the omnipresence of convenience stores, Western and Chinese fast food restaurants, and other types of breakfast vendors. Consumers in Taiwan are less willing to buy a whole package of RTE cereal than those in Western countries, where consumers cannot easily obtain breakfast within a walking distance from their home or place of work.
The third most important reason is that consumers are too time-restricted to eat breakfast at home. This result reflects that different habits and living paces significantly affect the purchase behavior. As for those who are accustomed to eating breakfast at home, RTE cereal is considered a suitable choice due to the easiness to prepare. As for those who would like to buy breakfast on their way home to school or workplace, RTE cereal would never be an ideal alternative, because of its consumption mode.
The rank order of familiarity factor demonstrates the different extents of importance between buying motives and rejecting reasons. It is generally believed that the more familiar a consumer becomes with the product, the more likely he is to buy it.
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On one hand, buyers have been familiar with what they usually purchase, and thus tend to take familiarity for granted and consider it an unimportant concern. On the other hand, consumers could resist purchasing certain products simply because they are unknown to them. In this case, familiarity could be a much more important concern in rejection than in motivation.
Information search
TV commercial was rated the most important source of information concerning food purchase, followed by direct mail (DM), and print advertisements (newspaper and magazines). While most consumers act as passive recipients when obtaining and processing information from TV commercials, their roles could turn into active ones when collecting information from DM. It may be that consumers think highly of DM because it provides complete information about all kinds of special events, including coupons, discounts, and premiums, etc. The function of DM is not merely an information source, but also a useful tool in facilitating shopping process, in that shoppers can save their limited time and money.
In the present survey, respondents were also split into two age groups (young adults and parents) to examine the difference in the importance of information source.
The result reported that among the six types of media, only the Internet and TV commercial were rated more important by the younger group than by the older one, reflecting that on average, the young could spend more time in front of TV and computer than the old. By contrast, the older group gave higher ratings to newspaper and magazines than the younger one, implying that young respondents are less used to obtaining information though newspaper and magazines. It may be that younger respondents find it harder to cultivate the habit of reading than of watching TV because most of the time, TV programs are in more vivid patterns and require less concentration when acquiring than reading materials.
What is noteworthy is that most information sources were rated neutral or less than neutral (unimportant), suggesting that due to nondurable and routine characteristics of food purchase, respondents could be indifferent toward information search.
Preference for RTE cereal
The extent of preference toward RTE cereal was also tested for possible difference by gender, age, residence, and usage. Gender and age turned out to be of no effects on favorability, whereas residence and usage had major effects of residence and usage on preference towards RTE cereal. On one hand, ANOVA found a significant effect for favorability between user and nonuser, implying a general belief
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that the more shoppers are fond of certain product, the more likely they are to buy it.
On the other hand, there was main effect of residence on preference towards RTE cereal. Respondents from Taipei area demonstrated a higher extent of favorability toward RTE cereal than those from cities in middle and south of Taiwan.
Purchase likelihood
The likelihood of actual purchase action was estimated by question choices of the most impressive brand, the most favorable one, and the most desirable one.
Kellogg’s brand name received the most responses among all these three questions, with ratios of 42% as the most impressive brand chosen by respondents, and about one third as the most favorable and desirable.
The particularly outstanding ratio as the most impressive brand reflects Kellogg’s success in building its reputation, in that it has become the most popular brand name in the industry. In fact, RTE cereal is one of the most advertised products on television and Kellogg has been ranked as the UK’s second biggest spender (Vignali, 2001).
When it comes to the most favorable and desirable brand, however, both ratios obviously dwindle to around one third. Many respondents turned to Quaker in these two questions, e.g. in terms of the most favorable brand, Quaker’s brand name received a comparable ratio of 30.36% to Kellogg’s 33.33%. In addition, even though the local brand Cereal was rated the second most impressive one, with a ratio of 31.68% surpassing Quaker’s 19.14%, it was exceeded by Quaker in the other two questions. These results could demonstrate that gaining good publicity does not necessarily mean generating the same magnitude of favorability and desirability. On the other hand, judging from the closeness between ratios of the most favorable and desirable brand given to the four brand choices, the extent of favorability could be more consistent with that of desirability than of impressiveness.
Thus, one of the major differences among these four brands is that in Taiwan, Kellogg and Cerear are both famous brand names of solely RTE cereal products, whereas Quaker and Nestle are more diversified and harder to define their concentration fields. It is likely that respondent’s knowledge that they were filling questionnaires concerning RTE cereal had narrowed down their responses toward
“RTE cereal brands” instead of sheer brand impressions. This limitation could explain why Nestle received the least responses in all cases, even though it is actually the largest food company in the world.
Breakfast Budget
Based on statistics of breakfast choice factors, price itself was rated unimportant in breakfast-buying decision, while whether the breakfast is good value for money
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was given high ratings. This result suggests that as long as respondents can be certain that the quality of breakfast fits in with their expectations and needs, they are willing to pay more for the “good value”. Each consumer has two ways to interpret values of breakfast. On one hand, they weigh the worthiness of some alternatives simply by ostensible market price. On the other hand, they perceive values by estimating the extent to which the purchase would allow them to feel satisfied. For example, a buyer caring about healthiness would balance values brought about by sheer product price and healthy functions. If the benefit of healthiness outweighs the price, purchase action will take place, and vice versa.
In terms of budget for breakfast, the range of NT$31-50 received the most responses, accounting for 52.1% of total respondents. In order to estimate correctly the expense of RTE cereal as breakfast each time, price investigation was administered in a large retail outlet (Carrefour) where prices of some popular brands of RTE cereal and milk were recorded. The result shows that RTE cereal plus milk per serving cost less than NT$30 in most of the different brand combinations. The most expensive combination is Cerear Cornflakes plus Uni-president Juisui Milk, equal to NT$31.58, while the least expensive Quaker Oh’s plus Kuangchuan Milk, equal to NT$22.25.
Even if the result demonstrates the seemingly low cost of RTE cereal consumption, there are still many other factors that allow consumers to consider RTE cereal consumption unworthy. One possible reason could be that, as for some consumers, the suggested use, i.e. 30g RTE cereal plus 300ml milk, is not sufficient.
In this case, the quantity of each use has to increase, and the expense rises as well.
Conclusion
These results demonstrate the factors that are important for breakfast food choice.
Health was rated the most important by participants, followed by Mood, Sensory Appeal, Convenience, etc., while Weight Control and Familiarity was considered unimportant. The data of motivations to buy RTE cereal also seem to support Health and Convenience as important factors governing breakfast food choice, in that the easiness to prepare, health aspect, and the convenience to purchase were rated the most important.
In addition, these results show clear differences in the factors that are important for breakfast food choice between divided groups of respondents. In terms of usage effect, there were main effects for factors regarding fiber and nutrient content, natural ingredients, low price, weight control, routine usage, and clearly marked origin. With regard to gender effect, the two samples of respondents were significantly different in factors of weight control, fiber content and natural ingredients, for which female
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respondents tend to give higher ratings. Moreover, Health, Natural Content, Price, Weight Control, and Ethical Concern are outstanding factors for which there are significant age effects. These data may therefore have important ramifications for marketing of RTE cereal to consumers of different sociodemographic backgrounds.