Home chef meal kits: Product attributes, perceived value and repurchasing intentions the moderating effects of household configuration

Abstract

Considering the growing popularity meal kits are undergoing in today's grocery sales market, and also with respect to barriers presented for restaurant dining due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it is essential to obtain more knowledge surrounding those product and service attributes pertaining to consumers and meal kits. Thus, this study was designed to investigate meal kits' essential attributes representing food quality, menu variety, health-oriented, convenience and price in association with their effects upon users' perceived value, and intention to continuously use. Two attributes representing high quality food dishes and menu variety were found to be the most important meal kit attributes because they both strongly improved hedonic and functional value for consumers. Results identified meal kit food quality as having more positive effects upon perceived value for the multi-person household segment when compared with the single-person household group. Comparatively, the effects of menu variety upon perceived value were more positive in the single-person household group than in the multi-person household group. Based on our findings, theoretical, managerial implications, limitations and recommendations for future research are provided.