Consumers’ Knowledge, Perception, and Attitude towards Nutrition and Health Claims on Dairy Products and Purchase Intention in Johor Bahru

Abstract

Nowadays the increasing prevalence of dietary disease has raised consumers’ awareness of healthy diet and lifestyle. The rise in the use of nutrition and health claims to promote health benefits in food products help consumers make effective food choices. There is very limited research regarding nutrition and health claims in Malaysia. This research focused on consumers’ knowledge, perception (i.e. perceived quality, perceived healthiness, perceived value, perceived importance, trust and perceived familiarity), and attitude towards nutrition and health claims on dairy products as well as their purchase intention towards the products, and examine the relationship between these variables in Johor Bahru, Johor. All responses were collected by distributing questionnaire to convenience and quota sample (n=200). Data was analysed to obtain descriptive statistics and correlation analysis. The results showed that most of the consumers (46%) had moderate knowledge of nutrition and health claims on dairy products. Consumers generally had almost positive perception and attitude towards nutrition and health claims on dairy products and positive purchase intention towards dairy products. Almost all independent variables correlated with purchase intention towards dairy products. Consumer attitude had the strongest positive relationship with purchase intention (r=0.722), followed by moderate positive correlation between consumer perception and purchase intention (r=0.671), while consumer knowledge only had low relationship with purchase intention (r=0.299). This study added new knowledge regarding public purchasing behaviour towards dairy products with nutrition and health claims. This research also provided valuable information for both food manufacturers and companies to help them make effective decisions to improve the presentation of nutrition and health claims for better expression of information as well as the goodness of food products in order to attract the attention of health-conscious consumers.