Willingness to try innovative food products: a comparison between British and Brazilian consumers.

Autorde Barcellos, Marcia Dutra
CargoReport

Introduction

It is well-known that consumers in general present some level of resistance in adopting innovation, especially in items of high technology. Rogers (1962), in his seminal work with the Innovation Adoption Curve model, segmented the adoption behaviour amongst five categories of individuals, based on their willingness to be more or less open to innovation. From innovators to laggards, individuals range on a continuum. The model, also known as Multi-Step Flow Theory or Diffusion of Innovation Theory, proposes that some consumers are more averse to the adoption of innovation than others, but it does not indicate clear boundaries of consumption behaviour to delineate the differences between the segments. Moreover, Rogers' model is based on the adoption of technological innovation and it is known that technology per se presents, to some consumers, barriers regarding how to use or operate a machine, a bank terminal or a gadget.

Nevertheless, consumers also show resistance to the adoption of new food products that are introduced into the market. This could be related to cultural habits, to socio-demographic behaviour, lifestyle or the period of life one is living. It is also known that some consumers are more traditional than others and these could be the 'gatekeepers' of innovation adoption in some societies.

The rejection of some food products may also be related to food neophobia, which could be defined as "a strong avoidance to try novel, unfamiliar foods", such as ethnic food, for example (Pliner & Hobden, 1992, p. 105). For food-neophobic consumers, familiarity of food may be a central determinant of food acceptance, and constitute a barrier to the successful introduction of new food products in the market.

Eating habits of the Brazilian population, for instance, can vary considerably around the country. Not to mention Portuguese and Spanish, the southern region is also strongly influenced by Italian and German cuisine that came with the immigrants who colonized the region in the 1800s. In the northeast, the geographical proximity with the sea and the mix of Portuguese, African and Indigenous culinary habits since the XVI century has led to singular gastronomic characteristics (Souza & Hardt, 2002). Such variety might have a positive impact on the adoption of new foods, although more traditional eating behaviour could also be expected due to the strong regional and cultural roots of conservative consumers.

In the United Kingdom [UK], according to data from Euromonitor (Global Market Information Database [GMID], 2006), traditional food habits are changing. Consumer interest in ethnic food is growing and stems from the presence of large and relatively recent immigrant communities that have brought South and East Asian, Latin American and Mediterranean cuisine to the food service industry. British people are also travelling more than they ever have, and are encountering new flavours and ingredients, which they want to replicate at home.

In addition, Euromonitor (GMID, 2006) data indicates that consumers from the UK are leading the way in ready meals, spending an average of US$161 per person per annum on them. They also spend more than anyone else on prepared salads. UK ready meals tend to be a curious mixture of global recipes from around the world and old-fashioned home comfort food (often involving mashed potato) which few can find the time to cook from scratch. The British are also the largest buyers of chilled ready meals, with supermarket brands being the most popular. In this regard, British consumers might be less resistant to the adoption of new foods.

Furthermore, innovation constitutes an important competitive advantage for food companies. Innovative consumers constitute a key market segment to investigate, since they can propel novelties by being the first adopters of a food consumption pattern.

In the case of Brazil and in the UK, the analysis of the introduction of new food products to the market has never been addressed, and it is unclear how consumers, on average, would relate to the adoption of such foods. Therefore, investigating willingness to adopt or reject innovative food products becomes strategic to the food industry in both cases.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Innovation in the food industry is an important source of differentiation and a value-adding opportunity for managers to develop new products. Hence, innovation constitutes a competitive advantage in the globalised agri-food scenario.

According to Michaut (2004), new products are vital for sustainability in today's markets. Innovation specifically provides corporate vitality, enhanced performance-price index for consumers and a much needed opportunity to differentiate from competitors (Fusco, 1994 as cited in Michaut, 2004). Moreover, inputs for innovation were found to have a positive impact on profitability (Capon, Farley, & Hoenig, 1990 as cited in Michaut, 2004).

Costa and Jongen (2006) state that product innovation may to help to maintain a firm's growth (thereby protecting the interests of investors, employees and food chain actors), reduce the market risk, enhance the company's stock market value and increase competitiveness. Conversely, the authors state that the European food and beverage industry is quite conservative in the type of innovations it introduces to the market, with much lower Research and Development [R&D] investments than industries in other sectors.

One possible explanation, according to studies by Cooper (1994) and Costa and Jongen (2006), is that many food product introductions fail. Around 40% to 50% of new product introductions are off of retailers' shelves within a year, according to Ernst & Young Global Client Consulting (1999). As a consequence of such negative product introduction results, the food sector strategy is characterized by a parsimonious development of innovations. Much of the innovation is based on brand extensions of the same product line, which is a less risky strategy (Grime, Diamantopoulus, & Smith, 2002). Consumers also present a slow rate of change in eating preferences and habits. Furthermore, they tend to reject too much novelty in food, thereby constituting strong barriers to genuine innovation (Costa & Jongen, 2006).

Nonetheless, innovative consumers represent a key market segment. They play an essential role in the success of a new product by legitimizing the novel product to other consumers (Huotilainen, Pirttila-Backman, & Tuorila, 2006).

There is considerable evidence that personality traits affect willingness to consume certain new or novel foods. According to Tuorila, Laahtenmaki, Pohjalainen and Lotti (2001), food neophobia is individual, although cultural and socio-economic influences have been reported in the literature. Flight, Leppard and Cox (2003), for example, hypothesised that urban subjects in comparison to rural subjects would have lower food neophobia. In a similar fashion, Socio-Economic Status [SES] would have a negative influence towards food neophobia, since greater disposable income to eat outside the home and greater educational status would provide greater knowledge of cultural cuisines and, therefore, less aversion to unfamiliar food, characterizing consumer innovativeness.

Generally, consumer innovativeness is considered difficult to measure. However, there is a consensus that there are different kinds of innovativeness and these could be innate or not. Innovativeness is conceptualized as ".. .a generalized consumer trait that exerts a positive effect on the trial probability of new offering across the broad spectrum of goods and services" (Steenkamp & Giles, 2003, p. 369). Steenkamp, Hofstede and Wedel (1999, p. 57) define consumer innovativeness as ".the predisposition to buy new and different products and brands across a variety of goods and services".

Nevertheless, Goldsmith and Hofacker (1991) distinguish between innate and Domain Specific Innovativeness. They developed the Domain Specific Innovativeness Scale [DSI] in order to measure consumer innovativeness for a specific product category, thus reflecting the consumer's tendency to adopt innovations within a specific domain of interest. In the food sector, according to Huotilainen et al. (2006), the DSI has been employed to measure innovation in delicatessen-type ham (McCarthy, O'Sullivan, & O'Reilly, 1999), and wine (Goldsmith, d'Hauteville, & Flynn, 1998). The scale comprises six items and, according to Roehrich (2004), it has proved to be unidimentional, highly reliable and presented with a high predictive validity. These are the reasons why this scale was selected to be tested in this study.

Pliner and Hobden (1992) developed and validated a 10-item verbal instrument Food Neophobia Scale [FNS] to quantify this individual trait. The scale has been used in many studies in the food consumption field (Backstrom, Pirttila-Backman, &amp...

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