Consumer Attitude towards the quality of Perishable Foods in Dhaka City:An Empirical Study

The expansion of global food retailers in emerging economies has made the study of the consumers' attitude towards perishable food especially relevant at this time. Recently, as competitors of Kaccha Bazaar (flea markets), a lot of supermarkets have made arrangement for selling perishable foods, though at the same time posing a high level of uncertainty and unpopularity regarding overall food quality. This research tries to measure attitudes of consumers of perishable foods on the basis of the propositions advanced by various thinkers like Fishbein (1963), Katz (1960), Cohen (1964) and Kelman (1964). The study formulated a survey to collect information regarding factors like color, tenderness, spot, damage, physical dirt and water-wash for leafy vegetables; color, size, outer-shell, taste, smell and hardness for fruity vegetables; color, belly, smell, source, cold-storing for fish; and color, fat, presence of dirt, bone, moisture and origin for meat. Collected data were analyzed in terms of factors like importance, expectation and perceived actual level of value. It is found that damage-freeness for the leafy vegetables, taste for the fruity vegetables, smell of fish and color and moisture for meat are playing most crucial roles as deciding factors for consumers to purchase them. Finally, the study shows the gap between the expectation and perceived actual level of value in terms of types of perishable foods involved.