Consumer perception about fast food in India

Presented by Abhinav Saxena (imb2010020) Jatin Dua (imb2010042)

Introduction:
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India is a country where the food habitats change in accordance with the locations, traditions and religions.Then Indian audience prefer to have home cooked meals keeping religion and hygiene as their inbuilt characteristic. But due to the Liberalization of the Indian economy in the early 1990s, opened ways for new players to enter into the Indian market and hence they became quiet successful in changing the lifestyle and the food tastes of Indians. Moreover with the subsequent increase in the awareness among the people about the same, the urban Indian seemed to accept the new culture of eating habits. But this didn`t meant that we completely adopted their culture when it comes to eating, the multinational players had to change their menus accordingly. Introduction of vegetarian and selected Non vegetarian options and completely excluding beef and pork seem to be a suitable way to set their foot right in the Indian market. These outlets initially faced protests both democratically as well as politically and showed a great sign of non acceptance by the Indian consumers.These protests were completely based on the belief that these fast food outlets only served non vegetarian meals and besides that they were too expensive. Best example for this is KFC in India. Today, the same fast food culture is easily getting adapted in the Indian culture and the same expensive price tag is turning out to be a status symbol in the Indian Scenario. It is gaining acceptance primarily from the Indian youth within the age of 20 30 and they even have a brand loyalty for the same. According to the survey from AC Neilson, India is at the 7th place for the top fast food consumers among the countries of Asia-Pacific region. The sample of study was conducted mainly on the age group of 20-27 years of people and mainly students groups, reason being that they have a high tendency to adopt the modern lifestyle pattern and socializing with friends.

Fast food industry in India:

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Fast food industry in India is growing by 40% each year (this data is according to the worldwatch.org). Established in the year 1934 Nirula`s was the first popular fast food provider in the Indian Market. It started with ice-cream parlors and later moved to the range of fast food including burgers, pizzas, sandwiches etc.Today Nirula`s has a diversified group of chain of elegant business hotels, waiter service restaurants, family style restaurants, pastry shops and food processing plants in India. For the past 70 years it is serving over 50,000 guests everyday. Besides Nirula`s Wimpy was another fast food provider in the Indian market before 1990s. Wimpy was more famous among the foreign tourists in India while the domestic visitors were very less.Today Wimpy has 8 outlets in Delhi region only and is expanding its menu with Indian dishes with a view to attract Indian consumers. McDonald`s came in India in the year 1995 as a joint venture with Mr. Amit Jatia and Mr. Vikram Bakshi.Today it has more than 100 outlets in New Delhi and is among the most well known brands and most profitable fast food provider in Indian market. In 1995, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) also entered the Indian market and in 1996, Dominos entered the Indian Market in accordance to a long term franchisee agreement. By 2000, Domino`s had made its presence in all the major cities and towns in India.Within 7 years of its operations, Domino`s had made around 101 outlets in India. Similarly Pizza Hut entered India in June 1996 with its first outlet in Bangalore.

Results and discussions:

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A very important assessment that was made during the research was that the youngsters have to go through various factors while deciding upon their food habits. Factors such as environment at home, educational environment, availability and accessibility to fast food providers, and social environment in their surroundings. Moreover nutritional education, varieties of fast food and ambience of place for socializing affects their visit and liking of fast food outlets. When discussing the consumer behavior with respect to timings, preference of restaurant, purpose to visit and the factors influencing the visit, it was found out that people prefer to go during the time of snacks at the most and then during dinner time followed by lunch time;Young consumers of fast foods visit fast food outlets one to two times in a week or in a month; McDonald`s is the most preferred restaurant followed by Pizza Hut, Nirula`s and Dominos; but when it comes to home delivery Domino`s is at the top spot followed by Pizza Hut, Nirula`s and McDonald`s; and finally the research found out that 93% of their choices of restaurants were influenced by friends followed by relatives. While rating the most preferred attribute of a restaurant, the highest rating was given to food taste and quality; while selecting the outlet for socializing followed by ambience and hygiene, service speed and price variety were ranked according to the preference list. Location was least preferred.

Moreover only 3% people feel that the fast food restaurants offered healthy food while the rest feel that they offered either minimal or adequate nutritious values. While comparing the attributes between McDonald`s and Nirula`s; people believe that McDonald`s scored well in terms of services followed by hygiene and then price; while that of Nirula`s scored more on hygiene, food taste and price. About 83% consumers believed that fast food outlets should provide information on hygiene conditions; while 70% of the consumers believed that such information would certainly increase their consumer inflow into the restaurant; about 68% consumers want to have nutritional chart of all food items served to be displayed by fast food outlets. Another finding that the researcher came across is that about 81% of the consumers prefer home cooked food as compared to the fast food outlets. The reasons for this is that: fast food outlets food is heavy for wallet and stomach; ambience at home is better; home food is more nutritious, delicious, tasty, fresh, clean and healthy for body; we know what is prepared and how but not sure about fast food outlets; home food is cooked as per our needs, personal liking; fast food outlets food is for fun, change, entertainment of the friends and some time for convenience; fast food outlets food may be harmful; and home cooked food has low fat contents.

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Findings related to the research:

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The most important result showed that the Indian youth have a passion for variety of tastes and quality where as the hygiene becomes a secondary issue, nevertheless the customers still give their first preference to home made food.The customers prefer to go to these fast food outlets just for a change. The findings were based on three dimensions - service and delivery dimension, product dimension, and quality dimension analysis results. The consumers also feel that the fast food outlets must provide information on the hygiene factor, specially of the kitchen.