Abstract
Due to increase in adverse effects of changing lifestyle all around the globe, health consciousness
is increasing among people resultantly the belief that healthy food intake is better than using
medicine has given rise to the development and marketing of healthy packaged food products
commonly known as functional food. The purpose of this research is to investigate consumer’s
attitude towards nutrition and health claims products and their pre-purchase intentions. The
aim is to analyze underlying motivations which form the basis of attitudes viz. health
consciousness, health benefits and health beliefs. This research is an empirical investigation,
conducted through a quantitative survey by selecting 500 respondents from three different
supermarkets in Karachi. Correlation and regression analyses are used to find out the
relationship among the variable and ANOVA is employed to evaluate the moderating effect
of socio-demographic variables on pre-purchase intentions. Five in-depth interviews and
two focus groups are also conducted to develop an understanding on consumers’ beliefs
towards these claims. The results reveal that health consciousness, health benefits and health
beliefs explain variation in attitude towards nutrition and health claim products and prepurchase intentions. Also, they are significantly correlated with each other except health
belief. Significant effect of various socio-demographic variables are found such as married,
young and educated females are more concerned about health and have high pre-purchase
intentions as compared to the other groups. However, income does not affect other variables
but influences purchase intentions among all age groups. The results provide insight to local
healthy food products market, and food marketers may take expert opinion of nutritionists
to endorse their products as, generally, respondents are skeptical about the claims. Also,
claims should be communicated in a clear, comprehensible and less scientific way to increase
consumer response to these products.
Shumaila Kashif, Muhammad Zaki Rashidi. (2013) An Empirical Investigation of Nutrition and Health Claims in Shaping Consumer Pre-Purchase Intentions, Journal of Independent Studies and Research-Management, Social Sciences and Economics, Volume-11, Issue-1.
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