AN ATTEMPT TO DETERMINE THE SCALE OF FOOD CONSERVATISM – RESULTS OF THE PILOT STUDY

Abstract

Retaining cultural, social and gastronomic heritage is an important part of national identity and has economic implications for the local economy who produce food. Preservation of the culinary heritage is favored by consumer conservatism especially towards traditional food. The topic of traditional food has previously been discussed in literature, but scales used in the measurement of attitudes towards traditional food are limited. This paper focuses on traditional food and identifies and empirically assesses a measurement scale – food conservatism scale. A paper survey was administered to a convenience sample of 451 young adult consumers (students) in South East Poland. A total of 10 statements describing conservatism to traditional food was assessed using Cronbach’s Alpha, principal component factor analysis. Finally the conservative attitudes related to food are characterized by six (of 10) statements, related to health aspects of traditional food, trust in this kind of food and consumption of traditional food as to celebrate some events. Further research on consumer conservatism is highly recommended in order to better understand consumers’ motives and factors determining food conservatism.

Keywords

• cetscale
• ethnocentrism
• food conservatism scale
• food neophobia scale
• neophobia
• traditional foods
• measurement scale
• likert scale
• management
• marketing management
• consumer attitude