Food Quality and Preference 15 (2004) 259270 www.elsevier.

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Consumer perception and choice of minimally processed vegetables and packaged fruits
Peter Ragaerta, Wim Verbekeb, Frank Devliegherea,*, Johan Debeverea
a

Department of Food Technology and Nutrition, Laboratory of Food Microbiology and Food Preservation, Ghent University, Coupure links 653, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium b Department of Agricultural Economics, Ghent University, Coupure links 653, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium Received 15 July 2002; received in revised form 8 February 2003; accepted 26 April 2003

Abstract Sales of minimally processed vegetables and packaged fruits are rapidly increasing thanks to their image of convenience and healthiness. In this paper, consumer perception and choice of these packaged produce was investigated through implementing a consumer survey in Belgium. The rst part of the survey consisted of face-to-face interviews (n=294) at the point of sales with people buying minimally processed vegetables and packaged fruits. The second part of the survey was self-administered by consumers at home after consumption (n=237). The likelihood of buying minimally processed vegetables tends to be higher among better-educated consumers and among consumers with young children. Search attributes emerge in terms of importance during the purchasing stage, while experience attributes gain importance after consuming the product. The most important motivation for purchasing minimally processed vegetables relates to convenience and speed, especially for consumers who buy this product during weekends. Although health and nutritional value scored relatively low in terms of importance during the purchasing and consumption stages of minimally processed vegetables, consumers with a high awareness of the relationship between food and health attach signicantly more importance to these credence attributes. # 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Vegetables; Fruits; Consumer; Perception; Survey; Belgium

1. Introduction Todays society is characterised by an increasing health consciousness and growing interest in the role of food for maintaining and improving human well-being and consumer health (GfK, 2002a; Gilbert, 2000; IFIC, 2000). Vegetables and fruits are fully recognised for their benets towards healthy living (Cox et al., 1996), thanks to their protective function against cancer (IFIC, 2001; WCRF/AICR, 1997) and other chronic degenerative diseases (Leather, 1995). The World Health Organisation suggested a daily intake of 400 g of vegetables and fruits (World Health Organisation Study Group, 1990), in response of which many food-health campaigns (e.g. ve-a-day) were launched to promote
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +32-9-264-6178; fax: +32-9-2255510. E-mail address: frank.devlieghere@rug.ac.be (F. Devlieghere). 0950-3293/03/$ - see front matter # 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0950-3293(03)00066-1

the intake of vegetables and fruits during the nineties (Cox et al., 1996). Despite clinical evidence and eective public health campaigns (e.g. Cox et al., 1998), vegetable and fruit consumption remain below recommended daily intake in many countries due to barriers such as complacency and lack of willpower to change the diet (Marshall, Anderson, Lean, & Foster, 1994). Even among highly motivated consumers, constraints can emerge related to availability and income (Anderson, Cox, McKellar, Lean, & Mela, 1998). Especially for lower income groups, economic constraints play a major role. Leather (1995) suggested that the low intake of carotene and vitamin C, possibly resulting in a higher mortality rate, by low-income groups in the UK correlates with a low intake of expensive vegetables and fruits. Within the richer part of society, barriers relate to changes in consumers social environment, e.g. more women working outside the home, less time for cooking, leisure instead of

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cooking and increasing out-of-home food consumption (Cowan, Cronin, & Gannon, 2001; Frewer, Risvik, & Schierstein, 2001; Lambert, 2001; Marshall, Duxbury, & Heslop, 1995). Many of the above-cited constraints to vegetable and fruit consumption relate to real or perceived time pressure, which is one of the key factors for convenience orientation (Candel, 2001; Capps, Tedford, & Havlicek, 1985; Verlegh & Candel, 1999). Numerous studies have shown that consumers needs for convenience are correlated with food choice (Anderson & Shugan, 1991; Eales & Unnevehr, 1988; Grunert, Bruns, Bredahl, & Bech, 2001; Rappoport, Peters, Downey, McCann, & Hu-Corzine, 1993; Verbeke, 2001; Verlegh & Candel, 1999). A wide assortment of minimally processed vegetables and fruits has been developed to meet consumers needs for quick and convenient products, and to benet from vegetable and fruits healthy image (Ahvenainen, 1996). Salunkhe, Bolin, and Reddy (1991) dene minimally processed vegetables or fruits as fresh vegetables or fruits that have been processed to increase their functionality without greatly changing their freshlike properties. The type of process is dependent on the type of produce. Examples of processes are washing, cutting, mixing and packaging. This produce is characterised by a good degree of freshness, convenience and lack of preservatives (Shewfelt, 1990). This assortment of mainly vegetables and some fruits is becoming more and more popular. In the US, the sales amounted to 12,000 million US$ in 2000 and are expected to reach 19,000 million US$ in 2003 (Gorny, 2001). In Western Europe, fresh processed vegetables account for an increasing proportion of the total fresh produce market with an estimated growth of 1025% per annum since 1990. In the specic case of Belgium, more than 50% of the turnover from vegetables and fruits at the retail level consists of minimally processed produce (Van de Put, 2001). Most research about the food category of minimally processed vegetables and packaged fruits focuses on microbiological quality, safety, processing and packaging issues (Foley, Dufour, Rodriguez, Caporaso, & Prakash, 2002; Francis, Thomas, & OBeirne, 1999; Jacxsens, Devlieghere, & Debevere, 1999; Jacxsens, Devlieghere, Falcato, & Debevere, 1999; Nguyen-the & Carlin, 1994; Zagory, 1999). Consumer research, e.g. related to consumer perception or purchasing motives towards minimally processed vegetables and packaged fruits is scarce (Ragaert, Devlieghere, Verbeke, & Debevere, 2002; Viaene, Verbeke, & Gellynck, 2000). The scarcity of insight in consumer decision-making towards this rapidly growing assortment of minimally processed vegetables and fruits forms the rationale for this research. In the next section, the research method, including framework, objectives and data collection is presented.

2. Research method 2.1. Framework and objectives The framework of the present analysis (Fig. 1) is extracted from a classic attitudebehaviour model based on Engel, Blackwell, and Miniard (1995). During their decision-making process, consumers rely on dierent attributes or cues before deciding whether or not to buy and which product to choose. Attributes can be divided into intrinsic and extrinsic ones (Grunert, HartvigLarsen, Madsen, & Baadsgaard, 1996; Steenkamp, 1989). An alternative classication includes categories called search attributes (like price, colour and appearance), experience attributes (like taste and avour) and credence attributes (like health and microbiological safety) (Grunert, Bech-Larsen, & Bredahl, 2000; Nelson, 1970, 1974; Sloof, Tijskens, & Wilkinson, 1996). Since attributes are evaluative criteria based on which consumers form beliefs and develop attitudes and intentions, insights into the perceived importance and evaluation of attributes are a key to better understand consumer behaviour. Evaluative criteria may change depending on previous experience and the stage in the decision-making process (Gardial, Clemons, Woodru, Schumann, & Burns, 1994), because consumers may gradually become aware of product attributes that were not experienced before purchase. Zeithaml (1988) reported that consumers tend to rely on extrinsic attributes such as package and its specic characteristics in situations where relevant intrinsic attributes (like taste, odour and texture) could not be evaluated before buying the products. Once experienced, these intrinsic (experience) attributes can be expected to gain importance as evaluative criteria. Hence, a relevant approach is to distinguish attribute importance at purchase versus after consumption, a distinction that was conceptualised by Grunert et al. (1996) in their Total Food Quality Model.

Fig. 1. Framework and specic objectives (arrows) of the study.

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Numerous variables inuence consumers decisionmaking processes. Individual socio-demographic characteristics are commonly included as determinants of attitudes, perception and choice (e.g. Shepherd, 1989). Furthermore, motives or consumer motivation depend on individual and situational characteristics and aect the dierent levels of the consumer-decision making process. Motivation strongly relates to the formation of attitudes, preference and choice (Engelet al., 1995; Mowen, 1993; von Alvensleben, 1997). In this specic study, investigating consumer motivations is relevant given that food industry eorts towards oering processed vegetables aim at addressing two major motives of food demand, namely the convenience and health motive. Finally, besides individual inuences, also the potential role of time (moment of purchase) as a situational factor that may inuence consumers conduct during the purchasing stage merits attention (Assael, 1995; Meiselman, 1996; Mowen, 1993). The general objective of this study is to gain insights in the consumer decision-making process towards minimally processed vegetables and packaged fruits. This consumer research is part of a broader research project aiming at modelling the evolution of the quality of minimally processed vegetables and packaged fruits during storage (e.g. Ismail, Haar, Baalbaki, & Henry, 2001; Shewfelt, 1990). For such a purpose, identication of the cues that are important in the quality perception process and investigating how consumers form impressions of quality based on technical objective cues is crucial (Zeithaml, 1988). Specic objectives related to the above-mentioned framework are twofold: rst, to assess and compare the importance attached by consumers to dierent packaged product attributes during purchase and after consumption; and second, to investigate the impact of individual and situational inuences as included in the Fig. 1. 2.2. Data collection In order to gain insight in consumer decision-making towards purchasing minimally processed vegetables and packaged fruits, cross-sectional data were collected through a consumer survey. The research population consisted of consumers who bought minimally processed vegetables or packaged fruits in one of six supermarkets from the retail chain Delhaize (owner of Food Lion in the USA) situated in dierent areas of Flanders, Belgium. Respondents were selected through non-probability judgmental sampling (Malhotra, 1996, pp. 366367), i.e. population elements were selected based on the personal judgement of the researcher. The survey was undertaken during 2 weeks in March 2002. In order to account for moment of purchase, respondents were selected both during weekdays and during weekends (Friday evening and Saturday). Furthermore,

the survey was implemented in the morning as well as in the afternoon and the evening. Respondents buying minimally processed vegetables that normally require further processing at home before consumption like vegetables for making soup, soybeans or leek were not included. Parallel with the distinction between purchasing and consumption, a two-part questionnaire was used as survey instrument. The rst part was performed by means of a personal interview with the consumer at the moment of purchasing minimally processed vegetables or packaged fruits in the supermarket (purchasing stage). The second part of the questionnaire was selfadministered by the respondents at home immediately after consumption of the purchased vegetables or fruits (consumption stage). This way of questioning (immediately after consumption) avoids potential bias caused by relying on long-term memory. The second part of the questionnaire was to be sent back and if complete, a reward voucher of 4.00E for a purchase in Delhaize was awarded to the respondents as acknowledgement for their co-operation. In the rst part of the questionnaire, place, moment of purchase, purchased product and shelf life date were recorded. Subsequently, respondents were asked about their motivation for buying the produce (open-ended question format) and about their frequency of this purchase. Then, respondents were asked to indicate the importance of dierent packaged product attributes when buying the minimally processed vegetables or the packaged fruits on a 7-point scale (further referred to as ImpPur measures) (Malhotra, 1996). Attributes were elicited based on insights from literature. Finally, sociodemographic characteristics like gender, age, presence of children, education, profession and address of the consumer were administered. In the second part of the questionnaire, respondents were asked to ll in the shelf life date of the purchased minimally processed vegetables or packaged fruits (as control), the date of consumption and the place where they stored the purchased produce prior to consumption. Storage is relevant given its major importance with respect to the quality and safety of the product (Jacxsens, Devlieghere, & Debevere, 2002a, 2002b; Piga, DAquino, Agabbio, Emonti, & Farris, 2000). Subsequently, respondents were asked to give scores for importance of the dierent packaged product attributes after consuming the purchased minimally processed vegetables or packaged fruits (7-point scales, further referred to as ImpCon measures). Furthermore, respondents were asked if they intend to repeat their purchase and about their motivation for doing so (open-ended question format). Finally, respondents were asked to evaluate the minimally processed vegetables and packaged fruits after consumption (EvaCon measures) and to elicit some aspects of their awareness of

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the food-health association. This construct was measured as a ve-item 7-point scale (see Appendix). The obtained data set was statistically analysed with SPSS 10.0 for Windows. 2.3. Sample description A total of 376 respondents were approached in the supermarkets, of whom 294 were willing to co-operate (78%). Those 294 respondents could be separated into two groups consisting of 235 buying minimally processed vegetables and 59 buying packaged fruits. Respondents were personally interviewed in the supermarkets and asked to complete and return the second part of the questionnaire. From this sample, 259 respondents sent the questionnaire back within 10 days from purchase, which means a response rate of 88%. From the returned questionnaires, 22 were rejected from analysis for reason of too many missing observations or incompleteness, which yielded a total of 237 valid responses or a valid response rate of 81%. These 237 respondents included 192 consumers who had bought minimally processed vegetables and 45 consumers who had bought packaged fruits. During the analyses, two groups of respondents were considered with the rst one containing the entire sample of 294 respondents. The second one was a subgroup of the rst and contained only the 237 respondents who also completed the second part of the questionnaire. There were no signicant dierences (all P > 0.05) between these two groups with regard to the socio-demographic characteristics, type of purchased produce, motivations for buying and frequency of purchase. The gender balance of the 294 respondents was 17.3% male and 82.7% female, which is not surprising given our focus on persons responsible for food purchasing within the household. Age was normally distributed with mean age at 43.7 years and a standard deviation of 13.3 years. More than a quarter (26.9%) of the respondents lived alone. Two-thirds of the sample (66.9%) had children, of whom 33.7% had children younger than twelve. The composition of the sample in terms of employment status was as follows: 5.1% students; 9.9% retired; 55.4% workers or employees and 13.6% selfemployed. The rest (16%) of the respondents were working at home, housewife, househusband or unemployed. With these distributions of socio-demographic characteristics, it can be concluded that a wide range of socio-economic classes of the population took part in the survey, i.e. actually bought the products under consideration. With respect to education, 41.3% of the respondents had schooling until their 18th year and 58.7% had schooling beyond their 18th year. In comparison to the Belgian population estimates of 25% of persons (2564 years) having schooling beyond their 18th year (GfK,

2002b), our sample was clearly biased towards higher educational status. Given our respondent selection procedure, i.e. selecting consumers who actually bought minimally processed vegetables and packaged fruits, this nding points to a higher probability of purchase among better educated consumers. This is consistent with UK reports (Leather, 1995) on high-income group preferences for more expensive and more convenient vegetables like leafy salads instead of cabbage and sprouts that are preferentially bought by low-income groups. However, it should also be recognised that Delhaize-supermarkets are positioned as top-end retail outlets. Delhaizes image is one of selling high quality products, oering high service levels and being rather expensive, especially as compared with discount supermarkets, which also sell minimally processed vegetables and packaged fruits, though with a very limited assortment. In Table 1, the ten most purchased vegetables reported by the sample are presented, together with the packaged fruits that were bought. There were no signicant socio-demographic dierences between respondents buying minimally processed vegetables versus respondents buying packaged fruits. Regarding the frequency of buying minimally processed vegetables and packaged fruits, it seemed that some products of the assortment, more specically mixed shredded lettuce variants, were most popular. Our respondents were very familiar with the product category, as exemplied by the fact that 57.1 and 35.4% of the total sample indicated to buy their chosen product on a weekly, respectively monthly basis. Only 7.5% indicated a less than monthly
Table 1 Number of respondents buying the most purchased products, together with the relative contribution (%) in the total purchased assortment, subdivided into minimally processed vegetables and packaged fruits (all purchased packaged fruits are presented in table)
Purchased product Number of respondents %

Vegetables 1. Mixed lettuce: sugar loaf, endive, curled endive, radicchio 2. Mixture of young lettuce leaves 3. Salade gourmande: lambs lettuce, radicchio, curled endive 4. Shredded carrots 5. Derby lettuce: carrots, red lettuce, sugar loaf, white cabbage 6. Mixture of red crinkly lettuce and spinach 7. Lambs lettuce 8. Mixture of cabbage lettuce, lettuce leaves, red crinkly lettuce, parsley, chive 9. Mixture of young lettuce leaves and chervil 10. Iceberg lettuce Fruits 1. Strawberries in a tray 2. Strawberries in a tub, covered with foil 3. Red raspberriesblueberriesjuniper berries

41 23 19 16 14 14 14 10 10 9

17.4 9.8 8.1 6.8 6.0 6.0 6.0 4.3 4.3 3.8

31 20 8

52.5 33.9 13.6

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purchasing frequency, of which only one third (2.4% of the total sample) were purchasing the product for the rst time (trial).

3. Empirical ndings 3.1. Attribute importance during purchase versus consumption Table 2 presents the average scores for attribute importance and evaluation, ordered by descending values. In general, the scores given on a scale from 1 to 7 were high. Typical experience and sensory attributes like taste, odour and texture received high importance scores already at the buying stage, although these could not be experienced in the shop. A plausible explanation is that those high scores result from previous experience with the produce. In Fig. 2, the importance (ImpPur and ImpCon) scores of dierent packaged product attributes as perceived by the respondents are reported and signicant dierences are indicated (Fig. 2). In line with theory, search attributes (e.g. product appearance, packaging in general and transparency) were signicantly more important during the buying stage, while experience attributes (e.g. taste, odour, texture and feeling) were more important at consumption. Some packaged product attributes like freshness, shape and colour of the product were equally important in both stages. This also holds for the credence attributes (e.g. health and nutritional value). Remarkably, shape and feeling of the packaging scored signicantly higher after consumption versus when buying the packaged

product (P < 0.05). This was a bit surprising because at the moment of consumption, one would expect that the shape and the feeling of the packaging did not matter anymore. However, it must be noted that the importance scores given to those attributes were relatively low (Table 2). In order to identify underlying dimensions among packaged product attributes, factor analysis (principal component analysis) was performed based on the importance scores in the buying and consumption stage. Only respondents buying minimally processed vegetables were included in this analysis. The results of the factor analyses with determination based on Eigenvalues > 1 are shown in Table 3. The factor explaining most variance (29.6%) during the buying stage contained the credence attributes, freshness and shelf life date. Apparently, consumers use the search attribute shelf life date as a proxy of credence attributes (healthiness and nutritional value and freshness) during their purchasing decision-making. Experience attributes load consistently on a second factor, followed by three other factors including mainly search attributes either relating to the packaging or to its content. At the consumption stage, search attributes are grouped in two factors, which account for the largest shares of the variance (35.8% for factor 1 and 14.4% for factor 2). At consumption, freshness loads on the same factor as the sensory attributes, denoting that experiencing the product associates with evaluating its freshness. Credence attributes form a fourth factor at consumption separate from any other product attribute. These ndings are consistent with the idea that consumers rely more on extrinsic search attributes in situations where

Table 2 Importance of packaged product attributes at purchase (ImpPur) and consumption stage (ImpCon) of minimally processed vegetables and packaged fruits; evaluation of packaged product attributes in the consumption stage (EvaCon) of minimally processed vegetables; average scores on 7-point scale Product attribute Freshness Labelled shelf life date Taste Labelled content Transparency packaging Product general Health Odour Labelled information Texture Colour Nutritional value Appearance Packaging general Feeling product Shape packaging Labelled suggestions for use Feeling packaging Shape packaging Imp-Pur 6.85 6.80 6.62 6.58 6.42 6.42 6.36 6.31 6.29 6.13 6.11 6.03 5.96 5.44 5.33 5.31 4.77 3.96 3.64 Product attribute Freshness Taste Labelled shelf life date Odour Product general Health Texture Labelled content Colour Labelled Information Nutritional value Transparency packaging Feeling product Appearance Shape product Packaging general Labelled suggestions for use Feeling packaging Shape packaging Imp-Con 6.88 6.80 6.62 6.53 6.48 6.44 6.40 6.37 6.32 6.22 6.13 5.92 5.69 5.60 5.37 5.33 5.12 4.32 3.96 Product attribute Labelled shelf life date Freshness Labelled content Taste Product general Colour Health Transparency packaging Odour Texture Labelled information Nutritional value Appearance Feeling product Shape product Packaging general Feeling packaging Shape packaging Labelled suggestions for use Eva-Con 6.64 6.45 6.42 6.40 6.35 6.29 6.28 6.25 6.24 6.23 6.13 6.09 6.00 5.99 5.92 5.83 5.55 5.53 4.79

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Fig. 2. Perceived attribute importance (packaging attributes in legend and graph in bold) in the purchasing (ImpPur) and consumption (ImpCon) stage of minimally processed vegetables and packaged fruits; average on a scale from 1 (not at all important) to 7 (very important); *Signicant at the 0.05 level.

Table 3 Factor analysis of the scores for the importance of dierent packaged product attributes at purchase (ImpPur) and consumption stage (ImpCon) of minimally processed vegetables Attributes (ImpPur) 1 Healthiness Shelf life date Nutritional value Freshness Odour Texture Taste Factor loading 0.73 0.71 0.70 0.62 0.87 0.84 0.81 Exp. Var. (%) 29.6 1 Attributes (ImpCon) Labelled information Shelf life date Transparency packaging Factor loading 0.84 0.83 0.79 Exp. Var. (%) 35.8

12.2

Shape product Feeling product Colour product Feeling packaging Shape packaging Odour Taste Texture Freshness Nutritional value Health

0.78 0.78 0.71 0.68 0.62 0.87 0.86 0.74 0.62 0.91 0.88

14.4

Shape product Colour product Feeling product

0.83 0.72 0.70

9.8

10.0

Shape packaging Feeling packaging Transparency packaging Appearance

0.83 0.80 0.74 0.63

7.9

7.3

6.3

Only attributes with factor loading >0.6 are included.

relevant intrinsic attributes can not be evaluated before buying (Zeithaml, 1988), or that consumers use observable indicators (shelf life date at purchase, sensory experience at consumption) to form an overall judgement of product quality, freshness in this case (Grunert et al., 1996; Steenkamp, 1989).

3.2. Role of inuencing factors Potential individual inuences include socio-demographic characteristics, experience with the product category and food-health awareness. Motivations will be discussed separately in the next section. Relating to

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respondents characteristics, it seemed that credence attributes, both in the buying and consumption stage, were perceived as less important by consumers who experienced higher education (above 18 years) (P < 0.05). With respect to age, consumers under 36 years perceived healthiness, nutritional value and freshness as less important compared to older age groups (P < 0.05), both during purchasing and at consumption. Furthermore, credence attributes (healthiness, nutritional value, freshness) and suggestions for use were perceived as more important both in the buying and consumption stage by consumers with children in comparison with consumers without children (P < 0.05). There were also signicant dierences between males and females. Women perceived the credence attributes and information on the package at purchase, and most of the experience attributes at consumption (texture, avour, and taste) as more important than men. Finally, respondents working outside the home attached more importance to shelf life (expiry date) when purchasing the produce as compared to respondents working at home, being retired, student or unemployed (P < 0.05). The type of purchased produce and the frequency of buying could be related to the perceived importance of product attributes during buying or consumption. Respondents buying a package with only one type of lettuce attributed signicantly lower importance scores to nutritional value (both during the buying and consumption stage) and health (only in the buying stage) as compared to those who bought packages with mixed types of lettuce (P < 0.05). Consumers buying minimally processed vegetables most frequently (i.e. on a weekly basis) attached signicantly more importance to the sensory (experience) attributes texture and odour, though only in the buying stage. Furthermore, frequent users scored the importance of the credence attributes, nutritional value and health higher after consumption, as compared to those who bought the product with a lower than weekly frequency (P < 0.05). Situational characteristics that may inuence perceived attribute importance include moment and place of purchase. People buying the produce during the weekend attached signicantly more importance to the shelf life date both in the buying and consumption stage as compared to consumers who bought it on weekdays. A potential explanation is that consumers envisage buying products during the weekend for storage, versus purchasing for immediate consumption on weekdays. This explanation is supported when comparing the number of days that the products are stored before consumption. On average, products bought on weekdays were stored for 0.62 days, which in reality means consumption on the day of purchase in the majority of the cases. Products bought during the weekend are stored on average for 0.98 days (t=2.56; P=0.011).

There was a signicant dierence in the perceived importance of credence attributes (nutritional value and health) between consumers buying the produce in the two big cities (Antwerp and Ghent) compared to purchase in smaller towns. Consumers buying in a big city perceived the nutritional value (both in the buying and consumption stage) and health (only in the buying stage) as less important than respondents buying in smaller cities. Perceived relationship between food consumption and human health (food-health association) was measured by means of a ve-item construct on a scale from 1 to 7. The scores of the ve items resulted in a Cronbachs alpha of 0.67. After dropping one item, the Cronbachs alpha reached a value of 0.73, which indicates satisfactory internal consistency reliability (Nunnally, 1978). The four remaining items were added up into an aggregated score ranging from 4 to 28 (mean=22.24, S.D.=3.68, skewed towards high awareness of the potential impact of food consumption on personal health). Respondents aged > 60 years reported a signicantly higher score for food-health awareness as compared with all other age groups (F=3.74; P=0.012). Consumers who reported high food-health awareness (score > 22) gave a signicantly (P < 0.05) higher score for the importance (both in the buying and consumption stage) of the credence attributes (nutritional value and health) as compared to the consumers who gave a lower score (422) on the food-health awareness construct. Finally, there was a tendency for consumers buying their produce on a weekly basis (high frequency) to score higher on food-health awareness than those respondents buying their produce less frequently (t=1.670; P=0.096).1 3.3. Attribute evaluation and repeat purchase In general, all product attributes scored well above average in the evaluation (Table 2). Specic packaging attributes, although some are not perceived as extremely important, scored very high in the evaluation. It should be noted that the last column of Table 2 (evaluation of dierent packaged product attributes in the consumption process) only presents the scores for minimally processed vegetables. There was a complete lack of information on the packaging of some packaged fruits which led to signicantly worse evaluations for this category as compared to vegetables. Consumers buying minimally processed vegetables most frequently (i.e. on
1 An anonymous reviewer pointed out that individuals scoring high on food-health awareness may generally report consuming more vegetables. Actual overall vegetable consumption data would be needed to verify whether minimally processed vegetables are bought as a substitute of fresh vegetables (for reason of convenience) or rather as a compliment to consumers total vegetable baskets (e.g. purchasing those vegetables that are not available for maintaining a healthy diet).

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Table 4 Top ve of rst-stated and second-stated motivations for buying minimally processed vegetables or buying packaged fruits (frequency and %) Motivations for buying vegetables First-stated motivation (n=225) Convenient Quick Quantity (suitable for small households) Mixture (of dierent vegetables) Price/quality Second-stated motivation (n=140) Quantity (suitable for small households) Convenient Delicious Mixture (of dierent vegetables) Quick Freq % Motivations for buying fruits First-stated motivation (n=59) Only packaged available Delicious Convenient Hygienic By order of. . . Second-stated motivation (n=36) Delicious Healthy Only packaged available Hygienic Experience previous purchases/habit Freq %

101 45 28 17 10

44.9 20.0 12.4 7.6 4.4

29 12 5 4 3

49.2 20.3 8.5 6.8 5.1

30 26 20 18 15

21.4 18.6 14.3 12.9 10.7

12 4 4 3 3

33.3 11.1 11.1 8.3 8.3

a weekly basis) scored nutritional value higher than less frequent buyers (t=0.22; P=0.028). Other individual or situational characteristics did not signicantly associate with attribute evaluation. Although evaluation scores may depend on preservation of the product between the moment of purchase and consumption, no signicant dierences were detected between consumers who ate the product immediately versus those who stored the product for some time at home. From the information about the storage conditions of the purchased produce before consumption, the results show that packaged fruits were more frequently consumed immediately at home, while most buyers of minimally processed vegetables stored their produce in the refrigerator to consume it some hours or days later (w2=10.75; P=0.001). All but one buyer of minimally processed vegetables who did not eat their produce immediately claimed they stored it in the refrigerator, which may explain absence of dierence in evaluation of the products. About 31% of the packaged fruits that were not consumed immediately were stored in another place than the refrigerator. From the 192 respondents who bought minimally processed vegetables, only three of them indicated they would not buy the produce again because of a disappointing or bad taste or avour of the product. There were also three respondents of the 45 who bought packaged fruits declaring they would not buy the produce again for reasons of taste or avour. All respondents indicating an intention to stop buying minimally processed vegetables or packaged fruit were less experienced with the product category, i.e. purchasing the produce with a relatively low frequency (once a month). 3.4. Purchasing motivations The rst- and second-stated motivations for purchasing minimally processed vegetables and packaged fruits

are shown in Table 4. Clearly, in the case of minimally processed vegetables, convenience was the most important motivation for purchasing the produce. It is also obvious from Table 4 that for both vegetables and fruits, the health motivation was not so important as a motivation for purchasing. It was already shown that health was not in the top 5 of most important product attributes in the buying or consumption stage (Table 2). Despite consumers awareness of the food-health association, health appears not to be a major motivation for buying minimally processed vegetables. The rst-stated motivations for buying minimally processed vegetables were dependent on the moment of purchase (w2=5.85; P=0.016). Contrary to Verlegh and Candel (1999) in the case of TV dinner use, our data showed that minimally processed vegetables are bought more for convenience during weekends.2 Convenience was the primary motivation for 74% of the respondents during weekends, versus 57% on weekdays. An explanation could either be that during weekends people had less time or less willingness to spend time on preparing vegetables, or, as previously indicated that the products are bought rather for storage and use during the busy weekdays of the next week. Furthermore, convenience as motivation tends to be associated with working outside the home (w2=2.79; P=0.095) and younger age (41.3 for convenience oriented versus 44.9 years for others; t=1.89; P=0.060). Younger age could be related to the signicant dependency between having children under 12 years of age and convenience as motivation for buying the produce (w2=4.15;
2 Weekend shopping was dened as Friday evening and Saturday. An alternative approach to contrast weekend with weekday shopping includes comparing Saturday with weekday morning shopping. This approach was tested and did not yield stronger contrasts in terms of motivation and perceived attribute importance. Contrasting weekend with weekday shopping was not used as a proxy for working versus non-working status.

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Table 5 Top ve of rst-stated and second-stated motivations for future purchase intention of buying minimally processed vegetables or buying packaged fruits (frequency and %) Future purchase intention vegetables First-stated motivation (n=183) Delicious Convenient Fulls expectations Fresh Healthy Second-stated motivation (n=133) Convenient Fresh Delicious Quantity (suitable for small households) Mixture (of dierent vegetable) Freq 44 37 29 24 10 % 24.0 20.2 15.8 13.1 5.5 Future purchase intention fruits First-stated motivation (n=41) Delicious Fulls expectations Fresh Healthy Only packaged available Second-stated motivation (n=18) Healthy Fresh Delicious Only packaged available Price/quality Freq 29 6 3 1 1 % 70.7 14.6 7.3 2.4 2.4

27 26 19 16 9

20.3 19.5 14.3 12.0 6.8

6 5 4 1 1

33.3 27.8 22.2 5.6 5.6

P=0.042). About 76% (respectively 60%) of the respondents who have (respectively not have) children below 12 years bought minimally processed vegetables for convenience and quickness. This nding corroborates previous empirical evidence as reported by Cowan et al. (2001) who reported that households with young children tend to purchase more convenience foods. Also Zeithaml (1988) showed that women having at least one child younger than 10 years of age, more frequently mentioned convenience as motivation for purchasing fruit juice. In contrast with our ndings, Candel (2001) found that meal preparers with children are somewhat less convenience oriented. Finally, motivation based on convenience tends to associate with lower importance attached to suggestions for use, taste and freshness during purchasing (0.05 < P < 0.10). Candel (2001) also indicated that taste is judged to be less important the more convenience oriented meal preparers are. Lower importance attached to suggestions for use and freshness may relate to time constraints, i.e. lack of time to read the suggestions and purchase for immediate consumption. It should be noted that the respondents were not asked to give scores on the importance and the evaluation of the price of the purchased packaged produce. Nevertheless, a good price/quality relation was stated although with a low frequencyas one of the motivations to buy the minimally processed vegetables and the packaged fruits. It is important in this perspective to consider that the survey was performed during winter, with fresh crops being almost as expensive as the minimally processed vegetables. A number of respondents claimed that in summer, when fresh vegetables are cheaper, they would prefer to buy the fresh instead of the minimally processed vegetables. The rst- and second-stated motivations for repeat purchase of the same type of minimally processed vegetables or packaged fruits in the future are mentioned in Table 5. When comparing Table 5 with Table 4, it

emerges that after consuming the product, purchasing intentions are not only based on convenience but mainly because the product was experienced as delicious and fresh. This supports that experience attributes and their evaluation plays a crucial role for repeat purchases of the product (Gardial et al., 1994; Mittal, Ross, & Baldasare, 1998). In the specic case of packaged fruits, delicious was the most cited rst motivation for future purchase. While implementing the survey, it could be seen that if strawberries were promoted by means of free taste samples, much more consumers bought packaged strawberries as compared to supermarkets that did not provide samples.

4. Conclusions The success of minimally processed vegetables and fruits is growing thanks to those products ready-to-use and convenient image (Ahvenainen, 1996; Foley et al., 2002; Piga et al., 2000). In this article, empirical evidence is provided for illustrating consumer perception of this product category. Minimally-processed vegetables and fruits are purchased by a wide range of consumers in terms of socio-demographic characteristics, though with families having young children and higher education taking the lead. The most important (reported) motivation for purchasing minimally processed vegetables relates to convenience and speed, especially for consumers who buy this product during weekends. Convenience and speed are traded o to some extent against health. This was shown by the nding that health and nutritional value scored relatively low in terms of importance during the buying and consumption stages, despite rather high levels of food-health awareness. Furthermore, convenience oriented buyers of minimally processed vegetables tend to have lower interest in taste and information. Generally, top importance levels were attributed to freshness, taste,

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andespecially during the buying stagesome aspects of labelling (e.g. shelf life date). Perceived importance of search and experience attributes diered depending on the stage in the consumer decision-making process. Search attributes were found to be signicantly more important during the buying stage, whereas experience attributes were more important at consumption. Whereas credence attributes were equally important during both stages of the consumer decision-making process, perceived dierences in those unascertainable attributes are found to depend mainly on the characteristics of the individual. A rst limitation of the study pertains to the absence of using specic attribute elicitation techniques as an exploratory research phase. This may have led to neglecting important attributes. A second limitation results from the use of non-probability judgmental sampling, which basically is convenience sampling, during the quantitative study. In result, ndings hold for this specic sample and cannot be extrapolated to the population. Three suggestions for future research are set forth. First, the study sheds some light on the debate of changing evaluative criteria before and after experiencing products. A more thorough investigation of this issue requires adequate quota of trial versus repeat purchasers. The share of consumers making trial purchases in our sample was too small to derive reliable conclusions as compared to experienced consumers, which may explain the rather modest dierences in evaluative criteria at purchase versus after consumption (Gardial et al., 1994). Second, the presented framework includes a limited number of individual and situational inuences. Additional individual characteristics, which merit attention in future research, include values, lifestyles, psychographics and personality (e.g. Candel, 2001; Grunert, Bruns, & Bisp, 1997; Vannoppen, Verbeke, & Van Huylenbroeck, 2002; Verbeke & Van Kenhove, 2002; Zeithaml, 1988). Furthermore, situational inuence was limited to moment and place of purchase in our study, whereas eating situations have also been shown to be highly relevant in relation with convenience foods (e.g. Termorshuizen, Meulenberg, & Wierenga, 1986; Verlegh & Candel, 1999). Third, the eventual trade o made by consumers between convenience and health oers interesting perspectives for future research, especially with regard to the product category of minimally processed vegetables. Therefore, direct measures of convenience orientation towards food (e.g. following Candel, 2001), in addition to measures of food-health awareness, need to be included in future studies. Despite the growing success of minimally processed vegetables and packaged fruits, very little is known about the evolution of quality attributes like odour, taste, colour and texture, as measured in an objective way in relation to the microbiology and the physiology of the product during storage. The insights from the

consumer research reported in this paper will be crucial for further investigating the quality evolution of these products from a technological point of view.

Acknowledgements This research is part of a PhD, funded by the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT). Authors gratefully acknowledge Delhaize for the permission to perform the survey in its retail outlets. Two anonymous reviewers and the editor are gratefully thanked for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Appendix. Items in the food-health awareness scale

Item I feel to have control over my own healtha Food plays an important role for keeping me in good healtha I know which food is healthy for mea My health is determined by the food I eata I feel to eat healthier now as compared to three years ago
a

Factor loading 0.73 0.64 0.79 0.75 0.49

Items included in the nal scale, Cronbachs alpha=0.73.

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