Customer Perception Towards Fast-Food Industry

INTRODUCTION
Food diversity in India is an implicit characteristic of Indias diversified culture Consisting of different regions and states within. Traditionally, Indians like to have home-cooked meals a concept supported religiously as well as individually. However, with times due to increasing awareness and influence of western culture, there is a slight shift in food consumption patterns among urban Indian families. It started with eating outside and moved on to accepting a wide variety of delicacies from world-over. Liberalization of the Indian economy in the early 1990s and the subsequent entry of new players set a significant change in lifestyles and the food tastes of Indians. Fast food is one which gained acceptance of Indian palate after the multinational fast food players adapted the basic Indian food requirements viz. vegetarian meals and selected nonvegetarian options excluding beef and pork totally from their menu. Today, fast food industry is getting adapted to Indian food requirements and is growing in India. It is gaining acceptance primarily from Indian youth and younger generations and is becoming part of life. Keeping in view the Indian habits and changing preferences towards food consumption, this study has its focus to understand the factors affecting the perception of Indian youth, in the age group of 20-30 years, towards consumption of fast food as well as towards making choice of fast food outlet

Fast food Fast food is one of the worlds fastest growing food types. Fast foods are quick, reasonably priced, and readily available alternatives to home cooked food. While convenient and economical for a busy lifestyle, fast foods are typically high in calories, fat, saturated fat, sugar, and salt.

DEFINITIONS: As per the free dictionary fast food is inexpensive food, such as hamburgers and fried chicken, prepared and served quickly. According to Merriam-Webster online dictionary fast food is designed for ready availability, use, or consumption and with little consideration given to quality or significance.

Fast food is a very fast growing industry in world as well as in India especially in urban areas (small and large cities). The and presence of massive investments. Currently, market growth is largely fuelled by the rising Indian fast food market has been witnessing rapid growth on the back of positive developments young population, working women, hectic schedules, and increasing disposable income of the middle-class households. Some of the unique properties of fast food like quick served, cost advantage, etc are making it highly popular among the masses. Thus, India offers enormous opportunities for both domestic as well as international players. Anticipating the future growth, many big international players are entering into the market by making deals with the domestic players. And those already present in the Indian market are expanding their presence in different provinces of the country. This trend will emerge more strongly during our forecast period, providing opportunities to local players to widen their product portfolios. Major fast food retailers have already started applying various marketing strategies in popularizing their brands in these cities. Furthermore, they are aiming to provide affordable and customized products to suit the needs of people that would ultimately provide necessary boost to the Indian fast food industry.

MEANING OF PERCEPTION The process by which people translate sensory impressions into a coherent and unified view of the world around them. Though necessarily based on incomplete and unverified (or unreliable) information perception is equated with reality for most practical purposes and guides human behavior in general. It is the process of perceiving things from the environment & organizes it to get meaningful information from it.

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY:

To study the consumption pattern towards fast foods particularly with respect to the frequency of visits and choice of fast food outlets.

To identify the perception of customers towards fast food.

LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Brown et al. (2000) emphasized the need for nutritional awareness and fast Food preferences of young consumers during adolescent years. Davies and Smith (2004) have analyzed the importance of nutritional values of fast food and also information printed/disclosed by the fast food providers in London.

2. A survey of more than 9,000 consumers nationwide in US has shown that about 25 percent of those who eat fast foods and drink sugary, carbonated soft drinks generally consume more calories, fats, carbohydrates, added sugars and proteins than those who do not (Bowman, 2005). According to the study of McNeal et al. (1980), respondents felt that meals were moderately nutritious and a good food buy, but they were fattening and contained harmful additives. 3. Adams (2005) paper outlines the bases for establishing fast food industry responsible for obesity as articulated in litigation against fast food chains in US.

4. Recent news article by Barker (2006) indicates that Indians are facing the problem of obesity and among kinds of food fast food is one of the reasons for the same. However, there is gap of a particular research in Indian context to have a link between the health problems and fast food consumption. In future, genetically modified food may take the place of fast food of today (Onyango et al., 2004; Sharma, 2005).

5. According to Schlosser (2001) with increased mobility and the sprawling of urban areas people spent more time commuting to work. This was coupled with an increasing presence of women in the workplace thus leading to less time allocated for food preparation at home. At that stage, some three quarters of the family food budget was initially spent on fast food.

6. In the UK, fast food preparation and presentation thus follows the American model which created a strong cultural and collective identity. The model has provided the consumers with uniformity and repeated experience (Schlosser 2002). Guthman (2003) calls this phenomenon the McDonaldisation of our society that has embraced the all American meal throughout the globe.

7. Sandelman (2003) believes that the actual fast food sector is in transition from a traditional selling of burgers to the pre-eminent arrival of a fast casual food industry.

8. Schlosser (2001) the most vehement critic of the fast food system, agrees that fast food, more specifically hamburgers, taste good. Yet Morgan and Murdoch (2000) disagree as they regard fast food from tasting good superficially since they are technologically enhanced products dripping with fat, therefore could by no means be tasty. Yet Sapala (2002) by establishing a parallel between the fast food industry and that of tobacco has come to the conclusion that we may become addicted to fast food, its texture, taste and the sensation of fullness after its ingestion. Nonetheless, whether it is the consumers responsibility to watch what they eat or the retailers obligation to monitor the healthiness of what they serve seems irrelevant when considered against the backdrop of consumers power of perception. After all, fast food brands are merely what the consumer perceive them to be (English 2002).

Research Methodology
Research Design: Exploratory research is used for the analysis. Though, the exploratory study does not consist of large number of variables but still data were subjected to factor analysis as one of the most used tool for exploratory data analysis (Santos and Clegg, 1999). It explains the association occurring between scale level responses.

Sample size: For this study a sample of 200 respondents are taken and this will be the adequate one. Accordingly 200 respondents from the target population were approached to fill in the questionnaire.

Selection of fast food outlets: In all there are three outlets in this region McDonalds, Pizza hut, dominos, KFC, Subway and other fast-food outlet in Agra, Mathura & Delhi-NCR as they are taken for our study.

Sampling method: For this study, we have used convenient sampling method. We selected the respondents as per our convenient for knowing their perception towards fast food.

Data Collection method & Instrument- For the study data will be collected through Structure questionnaire by sample survey.

Method of Data Analysis: Factor analysis will be used for analysis of the collected data.

Limitations
1.

References
Adams, R. (2005), Fast food, obesity and tort reform: an examination of industry responsibility for public health, Business and Society Review, Vol. 110 No. 3, pp. 297320. Barker, K. (2006), Fast food greases Indias way to fat, Chicago Tribune, available at: www. chicagotribune.com/news Bowman, S.A. (2005), Agricultural research, Science Update, Vol. 53 No. 1, p. 23. Davies, G.F. and Smith, J.L. (2004), Fast food: dietary perspectives, Nutrition & Food Science, Vol. 34 No. 2, pp. 80-2. Kara, A., Kaynak, E. and Kucukemiroglu, O. (1995), Marketing strategies for fast-food restaurants: a customer view, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 7 No. 4, pp. 16-22. McNeal, J.U., Stem, D.E. Jr and Nelson, C.S. (1980), Consumers nutritional ratings of fast-food meals, The Journal of Consumer Affairs, Vol. 14 No. 1, p. 165. Sharma, D. (2005), Is industrially produced food the new killer?, April 26, available at: www. zmag.org/Sustainers/Content/2005-04/26sharma.cfm Brown, K., McIlveen, H. and Strugnell, C. (2000), Nutritional awareness and food preferences of young consumers, Nutrition & Food Science, Vol. 30 No. 5, pp. 230-5. English, Simon. McDonald to shut in 10 nations. Daily Telegraph, 9 December 2002. Sapala, S. Is the fast food industry becoming the new tobacco industry?. Obesity Surgery 12 1:1-2.
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Schlosser, Eric. Fast food nation what the all American meal is doing to the world. Penguin 2002. Miele, M, Murdoch, J. Fast food/slow food: differentiating and standardising cultures of food Globalisation location and sustainable livelihoods. Ashbridge 2003

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