Consumer Preferences for Locally Produced Food Ingredient Sourcing in Restaurants

Increasing restaurant supply chain participants’ knowledge of consumer preferences toward the use of locally produced ingredients in restaurants may provide insight into a valuable marketing opportunity. This study uses conjoint analysis to evaluate consumers’ locally produced ingredient preferences relative to two other key restaurant attributes (the price of the dining experience and restaurant type). Results suggest that, for one fifth of surveyed restaurant consumers, a restaurant’s practice of “buying locally” is the primary restaurant attribute of importance. The implications of these results for supply chain providers (e.g., producers, manufacturers, and food service distributors) are discussed.     

Consumers’ perception of reduced calorie meals: How low is “Low-Calorie”?

ABSTRACT

With consumers becoming increasingly health conscious, the demand for reduced calorie food has significantly increased over the years. However, the definition of low-calorie food remains unclear. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate consumers’ perception of reduced calorie meals, from the perspective of the maximum calorie level that consumers would consider as “low-calorie.” Survey data were collected using MTurk. In addition to respondents’ perception of the calorie count of low-calorie food when eating out and eating at home, respondents’ attitude toward low-calorie food, behaviors about consuming low-calorie food and exercise frequency, and demographic information were also assessed in the survey. The results demonstrate that consumers’ calorie perception of low-calorie food served in restaurants is consistent among different types of restaurants. Moreover, consumers believe that a low-calorie meal served in restaurants should be under 367 calories for breakfast, 500 calories for lunch, and 677 calories for dinner. Lastly, consumers perceive home-cooked meals to be lower in calories than restaurant food. This study is the first attempt to explore consumers’ definition of a low-calorie meal served in restaurants. The findings will provide guidance to restaurant operators in designing menus, and help policymakers better understand the ongoing need to develop a sound and comprehensive definition for the term “low-calorie.”     

A conceptual framework for healthy food choice in full-service restaurant

The reasons for people’s food choices are complex and result from the interplay of several influences throughout various contexts. Although research has found that various factors influence people’s food choices, investigators have not considered the diverse elements affecting the methods or the procedures that people employ for selecting healthy foods in the context of full-service restaurants. Therefore, the current study was conducted to better comprehend family or casual dining consumers’ choices in relation to healthy eating behaviors. This qualitative study purposefully sampled three focus group interviews with three different types of participants (mature, nonmature, and chef/manager) to identify important factors that can encourage people to buy or eat healthy foods when dining at full-service restaurants. Content analysis of 16 interviews revealed three levels of healthy food choice factors that affect customers who want to enjoy healthy foods in full-service restaurants.     

Dirty dining: how exemplification affects food safety perceptions

News outlets recurrently publish stories depicting restaurants in a negative light by using vivid exemplars based on a reporter’s personal testimony rather than detailing food safety reports. This magnifies the most severe violations and may impact the public’s perception of the issue as well as influence behavioral intentions. Using exemplification theory, a between-subject experiment (N = 286) revealed that participants exposed to exemplars with personal testimonies considered food safety risks to be higher and declared being less likely to eat at a restaurant than those exposed to exemplars without testimonies. Practical applications for food safety messages are discussed.     

Assessment of the environmental sustainability of restaurants in the U.S.: The effects of restaurant characteristics on environmental sustainability performance

ABSTRACT

This paper investigated the current levels of environmental sustainability in restaurants across the U.S. to determine whether a restaurant’s proclivity for environmental sustainability depended on its characteristics such as chain affiliation or restaurant type.

A web-based survey was administered to 2,500 top-level restaurant managers, from which a total of 218 responses were judged as usable. The data were analyzed using independent

sample t-tests and ANOVA. This study presents an in-depth account of the environmental sustainability in restaurants across the U.S. based on an evaluation of top-level managers. This study also highlights the differences in restaurant environmental sustainability across different restaurant segments.     

An investigation of restaurant food safety performance: A comparison between ethnic and nonethnic and chain and independent restaurants in Louisiana

This study examines health inspection data from casual dining restaurants and compares differences of food code violations between ethnic and nonethnic restaurants. A total of 7,415 violations were retrieved from the restaurant inspection reports of 769 restaurants. Ethnic restaurants have more violations than nonethnic restaurant in categories related to food time/temperature violations, cross contamination, and food condition/surface/labels. Nonethnic and chain restaurants had fewer behavioral violations than ethnic and independently operated restaurants. Ethnic restaurants were 1.74 times more likely than nonethnic restaurants to have critical violations. Meanwhile, independent restaurants were 1.64 times more likely than chain restaurants to have critical violations.     

Food allergy information sharing and communication strategies in full-service restaurants in the U.S.

The purpose of this study was to explore how restaurant staff shares food allergy information with and communicate risks to customers with food allergies. Results of the online survey indicated that very few restaurants had separate allergen-free menus, yet the majority of servers had never or rarely asked if customers had any food allergy. Informing customers when the food preparer is unable to provide allergen-free meals, including a statement on the menu advising customers to inform servers their food allergies, and having a written protocol with procedures for serving allergen-free foods were perceived as the three most effective communication strategies.     

Restaurant Food Choices by Moms: An Exploratory Study

Restaurants are always seeking to better understand customer decisions. Mothers are of significance to restaurants as they have a direct influence on others, primarily children and spouses. This study focuses on what affects the restaurant food choices of “Moms” (a woman with at least one child 10 years or under). Three categories of factors were uncovered: externalities which occur outside of the restaurant environment, concurrencies which occur in the restaurant at the point of purchase, and confirming factors which cause an item to be confirmed or rejected after the purchase intention has formed. This article examines the externalities category.     

How do economic,cultural, and global-connectedness distances moderate the effect of customers’ experiences on their intention to revisit non-indigenous restaurants? Evidence from Korean restaurants

In this study, we evaluate how the effect of customers' experiences on revisit intention for non-indigenous restaurants can be moderated by economic distance (ED), cultural distance (CD) and global-connectedness distance (GD) between the country of origin for a given non-indigenous restaurant and the customer’s resident country. Surveys were conducted in seven countries across three continents, and the levels of ED, CD and GD between Korea and the seven countries were used as moderators. The findings suggest that the types of food and staff are two elements that should be emphasized in countries that are relatively close to Korea. Conversely, elements like the atmosphere of the restaurant and word of mouth should be emphasized in countries that have greater distances from Korea. Of the three distances considered in the study, GD had the strongest moderating effect on the relationship between customers’ experiences and their intentions to return to the restaurant. As a whole, the results imply that ED, CD and GD are important points of reference when considering prior experience while selecting a target country based on the strength of the restaurant’s experience management.     

Do the physical facilities in restaurants match older Americans’ preferences?

This study investigated restaurants’ response to the aging population’s preferences. Gaps between previously identified preferences and current restaurant design were examined. The observational survey assessed: parking and outside accessibility, comfort and inside accessibility, menu readability, and restrooms. Occasional gaps were found even though restaurants were generally well-designed. Casual dining restaurants were more likely to meet consumer preferences as to the exterior, seating, and service. Limited-service restaurants better met preferences for the bathrooms, lighting, and sound. This information may be helpful when building or remodeling restaurants and may help restaurants to attract older customers.     

我国中餐业特许经营的问题与管理对策

特许经营是中餐业经营的新方法。这种方法极大地满足了顾客的需求 ,促进了我国中餐业的发展。可以预言 ,随着我国经济的发展 ,中餐业特许经营将成为我国 2 1世纪主要的经营方式 ,将对我国经济和社会做出巨大的贡献。目前我国中餐业特许经营出现了一些问题和困惑 ,阻碍了其快速发展 ,我们必须认真对待和解决。同时应重视整合我国中餐资源 ,加强宏观管理 ,使我国中餐业特许经营不断发展和壮大。     

The Effects of Coupon Promotion on Repeat Visits in Restaurants

Abstract

Will customers' intention to return to a restaurant increase with coupon promotion? To answer this question, this study examines the hypothetical effects of coupon promotion on return visits to restaurants. Based on a literature review, three hypotheses were developed to test the effect of a coupon, its face value, and a patron's prior dining experience on return intention. The authors found that neither coupon use nor coupon face value contributed to explaining respondents' return intentions. However, repeat customers have a greater likelihood of returning to the restaurant than new customers. The study also showed that the quality of food and service were key indicators of return intention.     

Understanding Mature Customers in the Restaurant Business

Summary

The study reported here examined die differences between intangible service experiences of mature and younger customers in quick-service, casual, and fine-dining restaurants. The authors used ten unpleasant service experiences to identify the significant experiences that can impede satisfaction in three types of restaurants. No unpleasant service experiences were significant for either mature or young customers. However, in the casual dining restaurants, the (1) lack of product knowledge and (2) inattentive servers created significantly unpleasant service experiences for mature customers. In the quick service restaurant, the (1) lack of product knowledge, (2) inattentive servers, (3) rudeness, and (4) lack of cleanliness produced significantly unpleasant service experiences which in turn impeded the satisfaction for the mature customer. The reasons for these findings are discussed, and the authors suggest that the restaurant industry pay more attention to the mature population in order to increase both customer satisfaction levels and profits. A literature review precedes a discussion of the characteristics and service requirements of mature restaurant customers.     

Give your hunger a new option: Understanding consumers' continuous intention to use online food delivery apps using trust transfer theory

The recent growth of online food delivery apps (OFDAs) centralized the restaurant's business in electronic distribution platforms. Recently, a few researchers have attempted to understand consumer behaviour towards using OFDAs. However, various aspects related to the usage of OFDAs have not been explored. Drawing from trust transfer theory, the purpose of this study is to fill this gap by investigating the trust transfer from OFDAs to restaurants and to address the boundary condition of trust transfer by examining the moderating effect of perceived effectiveness of dispute resolution (PEDR) between trust in OFDAs and trust in a restaurant. The model was tested via structural equation modelling (SEM) using data obtained from 836 users of OFDAs through structured questionnaire. The results show that trust in OFDAs positively influence the trust in restaurant, which ultimately leads to the consumers' continuous purchase intention. Further, PEDR positively moderates the relationship between trust in OFDAs and trust in a restaurant. Additionally, disposition to trust and online reviews significantly develops consumer trust in OFDAs. The present research makes substantial theoretical and practical contributions as it develops a trust transfer mechanism by considering an emerging mobile-commerce field. The study provides a first theoretical outlook on consumers' continuous intention to use OFDAs, using trust transfer theory, which has not been considered so far. The findings provide information for food delivery platforms on how to manage conflict resolution to succeed in the market and help restaurants in selecting the most effective food delivery platforms with which to collaborate.     

The Effects of Voluntary Versus Mandatory Menu Calorie Labeling On Consumers’ Retailer-Related Responses

Restaurants with 20 or more locations will soon be required to disclose calorie information on menus and menu boards. Retailers not included in this mandate can choose to voluntarily provide calorie information. To better understand the implications of this major policy change for food retailers, this research examines how consumers’ retailer-related responses are affected by menu calorie labeling. A framework based on the attribution theory and the health halo literatures is developed, and three primary studies, including a field experiment, are used to test the proposed direct, moderating, and mediating effects derived from this conceptualization. Findings across the studies show that menu calorie labeling has a positive direct effect on perceptions of the restaurant’s concern for customers’ well-being and positive indirect effects on attitudes toward the restaurant and patronage intentions. However, these direct and indirect effects are attenuated when the restaurant is perceived to be more (vs. less) healthful and when menu calorie labeling is mandatory (vs. voluntary). The implications of these findings for retail and restaurant management are discussed.     

The effect of sensation seeking and emotional brand attachment on consumers’ intention to consume risky foods in restaurants

Sensation seeking and emotional brand attachment have been studied extensively, but limited research has been conducted on “risky foods.” This study explored how sensation seeking, emotional brand attachment, and risky food consumption varies demographically, and the relationships among those variables. Approximately 300 responses were collected from a restaurant serving “risky” and “nonrisky” foods. Significant differences included that consumption of raw/undercooked fish/eggs was higher in younger groups. Females showed more affection toward emotionally attached restaurants. The hypotheses testing showed the positive relationship from sensation seeking and emotional attachment to risky food consumption. Results offer information about marketing to different demographic groups.     

Big social data and customer decision making in vegetarian restaurants: A combined machine learning method

Customers increasingly use various social media to share their opinion about restaurants service quality. Big data collected from social media provides a data platform to improve the service quality of restaurants through customers' online reviews, where online reviews are a trustworthy and reliable source that helps consumers to evaluate food quality. Developing methods for effective evaluation of customer-generated reviews of restaurant services is important. This study develops a new method through effective learning techniques for customer segmentation and their preferences prediction in vegetarian friendly restaurants. The method is developed through text mining (Latent Dirichlet Allocation), cluster analysis (Self Organizing Map) and predictive learning technique (Classification and Regression Trees) to reveal the customer’ satisfaction levels from the service quality in vegetarian friendly restaurants. Based on the obtained results of our experiments on the data vegetarian friendly restaurants in Bangkok, the models constructed by Classification and Regression Trees were able to give an accurate prediction of customers' preferences on the basis of restaurants' quality factors. The results showed that customers’ online reviews analysis can be an effective way for customers segmentation to predict their preferences and help the restaurant managers to set priority instructions for service quality improvements.     

Tipped out: How do gratuities affect restaurant operations?

Tipping is a well-established social norm in North American restaurants. Researchers have given considerable attention to the interaction between consumers and servers, but less so to the relationships within a restaurant and even less so to restaurant managers’ perspectives. Our study, the first of its kind, used interviews and a survey to explore the perspectives of both restaurant managers and servers in identifying operational issues arising from tipping. Inequity and unfairness, loss of control of service quality, and difficulties in succession planning and promotion were identified. There is clearly a need to investigate strategies to mitigate some of these impacts.     

Comparison of localized and foreign restaurant brands for consumer behavior prediction

This study used two comparison studies to examine the potential brand perception of localized and foreign restaurants to predict consumer behavior. A total of 680 participants (e.g., 318 foreign restaurant customers and 362 localized restaurant customers) were included to discover and confirm the causal relationships among the quality of food and meals, environmental evaluation, willingness to pay more, and recommendations. Our study of foreign restaurant brands (Study 1) found that food and meals may indirectly affect the willingness to pay more and recommendations through providing a friendly environment. The destination's moderating role is also confirmed. Additionally, our study of localized restaurant customers (Study 2) identified the mediating roles of risk evaluation and willingness to pay more, which link the relationship between food and meals and recommendation behavior. Furthermore, destination trust was found to strengthen the relationship between risk evaluation and willingness to pay more.     

Revisiting customers' perception of service quality in fast food restaurants

This research is an extension to previous work in fast food restaurant marketing. The population of this research consists of actual fast food restaurant customers. Following the literature, data are analyzed using Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Structural Equation Modeling, and Path Analysis. Findings of this work identify factors impacting customer satisfaction, as well as dimensions of service quality and their rankings in the fast food restaurant context. Results indicate that there is no direct way of increasing behavioral intentions through improving service quality for fast food restaurants. Rather, behavioral intentions can be improved through customer satisfaction as an intermediary. Further, this work finds evidence that customer satisfaction can be improved through service quality, food quality, and price-value ratio, which in turn would pave an indirect path toward improvement in behavioral intentions in this industry. Results of this research shed light on prioritizing managers’ focus and resource allocation for customer satisfaction and different dimensions of service quality and can be used by fast food restaurant managers to set guidelines and strategies in providing better service to their customers.