Healthy Eating Out Health Consciousness, Menu Information, Price Sensitivity, and Guest Purchase Patterns in Restaurants
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Abstract
Background: Dining out is an emerging nutrition issue since restaurant selection depends on the interaction between health motivations, sensory considerations, cost, information and availability. The evidence on Indian non-metropolitan urban areas is still scant. Methods: Quantitative cross-sectional study using a structured questionnaire with Likert-scale statements in 122 restaurant patrons in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation, standardized multiple regression and one-way ANOVA were employed for assessing health consciousness, menu labelling/information, price sensitivity, taste importance, availability/convenience and healthy purchase intention/behaviour. Results: Older respondents above 50 years old made up the biggest share (44.3%) while 41.0% ate out once to twice per month. Highest mean score (approximately 3.57/5) was observed for health consciousness while the lowest (approximately 2.81/5) was noted for convenience/availability. Purchase intention was correlated positively with health consciousness (r=0.619), menu labelling (r=0.587), convenience/availability (r=0.495) and price sensitivity (r=0.486). The five-factor standardized multiple linear regression model accounted for 50.6% of the variance in healthy purchase intention (R²=0.506; adjusted R²=0.485; F(5,116)=23.76, p<0.001). Health consciousness (β=0.407, p<0.001), price sensitivity (β=0.312, p<0.001) and convenience/availability (β=0.289, p<0.001) were independent determinants of purchase intention while menu labelling and taste importance were insignificant after controlling for other variables. Healthy purchase behaviour did not vary significantly based on age (p=0.082) and household income (p=0.341). Conclusion: Demand for healthy dining in Bhubaneswar seems to be mainly driven by health consciousness but also moderated by availability and value perception. Menu information shows high correlation with healthy purchase intention but most of the influence overlaps with other factors like health consciousness. Thus, restaurants stand to gain more from making healthy options visible, affordable and available than from labelling only.
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