Factors Driving the Consumption of See Food in France

Abstract

An analysis of the main factors driving the consumption of see food in France is performed.

Factors Driving the Consumption of See Food in France

The objective of this paper is to use the outcome of a questionnaire designed and applied by a marketing firm called IMRI (Internet Market Research International Inc.) on March 2011. The survey questions attempted to measure information about French consumers’ preferences and choices of fresh seafood in the retail market. For the purpose of this analysis, seafood is defined as finfish, shellfish and crustacean.

The reason why this analysis is carried out and why the survey was done in the first place is because France has consistently exhibited the highest level of per capita seafood consumption among the countries in the European Union. Out of this consumption, it is interesting to mention that close to 70% of all seafood is consumed at home and the rest is consumed through the other main channels, which the restaurant and hotel sectors. The total value of retail sales for sea food products value of seafood amounted for around €2054 million, and a big majority of this amount is funneled through supermarkets.

Methodologically, the purpose of the survey to get a as clean as possible set of measures to depict all about consumer perceptions, attitudes and preferences towards seafood. For this purpose, various different simulated buying situations were used to gather information).

Statistical Methods

The information from the survey was collected in the following way. First, all the data from the experiment were collected from an online survey, which had a population target of French consumers aged 18-65 years, by means of using self-administrated questionnaires. The IMRI distribute the questionnaires to target consumers by using a internet panel, that was administrated by the IMRI. In total, a valid sample of 1017 respondents was collected.

The following research questions will be addressed in this paper

· Is the questionnaire design sound?

· Is there are significant differences with respect to the evaluation of importance of the criteria across relevant groups of respondents?

· Is there any possibility of data reduction/classification on the items consumers might consider when selecting food for their households that is variables?

· Is there an associative relationship between consumers’ preference for fish, measured by how often the consumers eat fish at home or away from home and certain predictors?

· Do indicators QIII1_1_1 to QIII1_ 3_1 measure a construct named ‘perceived healthy-ness’ (HEALTH), and that indicators QIII1_7 _3 to QIII1_9_3 measure a construct named ‘perceived convenience’ (CONV), and finally that indicators QIII1_16_6 to QIII1_18_6 measure a construct named ‘perceived price’ (PRICE).

For the purpose of analyzing the data collected from the survey and finding an answer to the research questions proposed above, diverse statistical techniques will be applied, such as One-Way ANOVA, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Cluster Analysis and Multiple Regression analysis. Throughout the following sections, all of the above points will be addressed.

Is the questionnaire design sound?

The content of the questionnaire does not seem to be a problem. In fact, the questions are questions that are expected for a questionnaire that need to gather information about the population being analyzed, or at least, if no indirect methods are used. On the other hand, one weak aspect of the sampling design is the survey is self-administered, through an internet panel, which indicates that the sample may be suffering of some type of bias (such as voluntary response bias), and then the sample may not completely representative. Such a situation could definitely lead to a problem with the validity of the statistical conclusions obtained.

Based on the sample descriptive statistics, the average French family spends €24.47 average a month on meat, €12.29 average a month on fish and sea food , €23.12 average a month on vegetables, €18.86 average a month on dairy products, and €21.25 average a month on other products. Also, the average family eats fish 1-2 times a week, shrimp a few times a year , mussels a few times a year, chicken 1-2 time a week, beef 1-2 time a week and pork 1-2 time a week.

The distribution of age and education in the sample doesn't seem to differ significantly from the distribution of the whole population is France.

Is there are significant differences with respect to the evaluation of importance of the criteria across relevant groups of respondents?

In this case, we need first to determine which of the items in QI8 are rated to be important. The following table is obtained:

Notice that "Important" is not the mode for any of the 7 items that conform QI8. Therefore, it is clear that it is not true for any of the samples that the entire sample deemed such criterion as important. In fact, for a variable such as Wild Caught, the mode is only "Moderately Important" (same as with Not Previous frozen).

On the other hand, there are 3 items with a mode of "Extremely Important", which are Freshness, Safety and Price.

Now, the above criteria variables will be assessed again the groups in the sample determined by the variable Who does most of the food purchasing for home consumption?, which divides the sample in 4 groups, but it actually has only two groups with non-zero frequencies, as show below:

For the 8 importance criteria in QI8, the following will be tested using ANOVA:

(where the group 1 is "You" and the group 2 is "You and your spouse"). The following results are obtained:

As it can be observed from the table above, the difference in the importance criteria items by groups is NOT significant for any of the items.

Is there any possibility of data reduction/classification on the items consumers might consider when selecting food for their households that is variables?

1. Factor Analysis

In this section we are interested in conducting an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) for the items consumers might consider when selecting food for their households, which corresponds to variables QIII1_1_1 to QIII_27_9. It is not completely appropriate to use factor analyze on this set of items because these variables are not truly interval variables, but ordinal variables, but they have plenty of categories (levels) so it is not an extremely bad approximation to use them as interval variables. Now, notice that we used Principal components extraction instead principal axis because more variability is explained that way in this case (with eigenvalues greater than 1)

The following results are obtained with the aid of SPSS:

Hence, based on the above results, 8 factors can be extracted out of the 27 variables selected. These 7 factors explain 76.71% of the total variation. The following factor structure is obtained:

	Component
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: contains a lot of vitamins & minerals								0.67547115
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: keeps me and my family healthy								0.812035714
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is nutritious								0.779316326
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: cheer me and my family up		0.866683611
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: help me and my family to relax		0.91854286
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: makes me and my family feel good		0.873973384
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is easy to prepare				0.906253671
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: can be cooked simply				0.903747387
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: take litle time to prepare it				0.866474253
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: smell nice							0.794908442
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: has a pleasant texture							0.856132419
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: taste good							0.797261163
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: contains no additives	0.837278809
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: contains natural ingredients	0.841360958
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: contains no artifical ingredients	0.853171623
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: Is not expensive					0.90599067
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is cheap					0.915628152
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is good value for money					0.7843993
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is low in calories			0.885546177
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: helps me and my family control the weight			0.909091766
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is low in fat			0.881296871
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is what my family usually eats						0.828405171
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is familiar						0.870649544
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: Is like the food I ate when I was a child						0.776602524
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is not forbidden in my religion						0.332481161
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: has the country of origin clearly marked	0.655791706
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is packaged in an environmentally friendly way	0.659763099

The groups of variables that cluster together are:

FACTOR 8

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: contains a lot of vitamins & minerals

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: keeps me and my family healthy

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is nutritious

FACTOR 2

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: cheer me and my family up

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: help me and my family to relax

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: makes me and my family feel good

FACTOR 4

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is easy to prepare

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: can be cooked simply

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: take litle time to prepare it

FACTOR 7

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: smell nice

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: has a pleasant texture

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: taste good

FACTOR 1

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: contains no additives

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: contains natural ingredients

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: contains no artifical ingredients

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: has the country of origin clearly marked

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is packaged in an environmentally friendly way

FACTOR 5

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: Is not expensive

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is cheap

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is good value for money

FACTOR 3

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is low in calories

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: helps me and my family control the weight

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is low in fat

FACTOR 6

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is what my family usually eats

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is familiar

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: Is like the food I ate when I was a child

It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is not forbidden in my religion

2. Cluster Analysis

Now we perform Cluster analysis to the same variables used in the EFA, this is, for the group of variables defined in QIII1:

Single Linkage

Ward's Method

Cluster Membership
Case	4 Clusters	3 Clusters	2 Clusters
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: contains a lot of vitamins & minerals	1	1	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: keeps me and my family healthy	1	1	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is nutritious	1	1	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: cheer me and my family up	2	2	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: help me and my family to relax	2	2	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: makes me and my family feel good	2	2	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is easy to prepare	2	2	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: can be cooked simply	2	2	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: take litle time to prepare it	2	2	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: smell nice	1	1	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: has a pleasant texture	1	1	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: taste good	1	1	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: contains no additives	1	1	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: contains natural ingredients	1	1	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: contains no artifical ingredients	1	1	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: Is not expensive	1	1	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is cheap	1	1	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is good value for money	1	1	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is low in calories	3	2	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: helps me and my family control the weight	3	2	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is low in fat	3	2	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is what my family usually eats	3	2	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is familiar	3	2	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: Is like the food I ate when I was a child	3	2	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is not forbidden in my religion	4	3	2
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: has the country of origin clearly marked	1	1	1
It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is packaged in an environmentally friendly way	1	1	1

The cluster structure seems to change a bit when using the linkeage method as opposed to using Ward's method.

Is there an associative relationship between consumers’ preference for fish, measured by how often the consumers eat fish at home or away from home and certain predictors?

The objective of this part is to run a linear regression analysis to determine the associative relationship between consumers’ preference for fish, measured by how often the consumers eat fish at home or away from home, QI4_fish. The candidate predictors used are the following independent (groups of) variables; QI8, QIII3, QIII1, and the respondent descriptors QV1-QV7. Considering the large number of variables, the best approach would be to use stepwise regression analysis.

The stepwise regression process runs 11 steps. The final model includes only

· Please indicate how strongly you agree or disagree with each of the statements: Fish as meal taste good

· Your birth year

· Price

· Please indicate how strongly you agree or disagree with each of the statements: Beef as meal taste good

· It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: contains a lot of vitamins & minerals

· Please indicate how strongly you agree or disagree with each of the statements: Chicken as meal is low in fat content

· Easy to cook

· Wild caught

· Please indicate how strongly you agree or disagree with each of the statements: Shrimp as meal is a healthy food

· It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: is low in calories

· It is important to me that the food I choose for my household consumption on normal days: cheer me and my family up

The regression coefficients for this model are shown in the table below:

This model is significant overall, with F = 17.489, p < .001. Also this model explains 18.2% in the variation of the dependent variable QI4_Fish.

Do indicators QIII1_1_1 to QIII1_ 3_1 measure a construct named ‘perceived healthy-ness’ (HEALTH), and that indicators QIII1_7 _3 to QIII1_9_3 measure a construct named ‘perceived convenience’ (CONV), and finally that indicators QIII1_16_6 to QIII1_18_6 measure a construct named ‘perceived price’ (PRICE).

We need to use Cronbach's alpha:

HEALTH

Since Cronbach's alpha = 0.815, which is greater than 0.7, we conclude that they measure a construct named "perceived healthy-ness" (HEALTH).

CONV

Since Cronbach's alpha = 0.916, which is greater than 0.7, we conclude that they measure a construct named "perceived convenience" (CONV).

PRICE

Since Cronbach's alpha = 0.916, which is greater than 0.7, we conclude that they measure a construct named "perceived price" (PRICE).