Consumer behavior as a factor of the household’s food security

Economic Annals-ХХI: Volume 139, Issue 3-4(1), Pages: 27-30

Citation information:
Mudrak, R. (2014). Consumer behavior as a factor of the household’s food security. Economic Annals-XXI, 3-4(1), 27-30. https://ea21journal.world/index.php/ea-v139-07/

Ruslan Mudrak
D.Sc. (Economics),
Associate Professor,
Head of Department of Marketing,
Uman National University of Horticulture
1 Instytutska St, Uman, 20305, Cherkasy region, Ukraine
ruslan_mudrak@ukr.net

Consumer behavior as a factor of the household’s food security

Abstract. The presence of food security at the macro level does not guarantee food security at the micro level. This creates a serious management problem – how to ensure food safety at all levels of the national economy.

The aim of the paper is to investigate the influence factors of consumer behaviour in his household’s food security and to develop proposals to neutralize the individual factors of food insecurity.

Pressing social and economic problem in Ukraine is non-rational consumer behaviour of households. The most telling example is expenditure on food items that do not represent the nutritional value and are harmful to health – alcohol and tobacco. The share of cash expenditures on alcohol in the poorest I, II and III decile groups no less than the share of cash expenditures in V decile group. The share of cash expenditures on tobacco increases over the reduction of average income. One of the main causes of the food insecurity is excessive income differentiation, diverse popularization and promotion of prestigious consumption patterns in the media. Low levels of gastronomic culture and lack of basic knowledge of many Ukrainian domestic households also are destructive factors of safe and quality nutrition.

This study leads to the following conclusions and suggestions:

1) the national food security and food security of individual households differ in their object of research methods and influence factors evaluation;

2) the household food security depends on the model of consumer behaviour;

3) the spending pattern of the households is formed under the influence of the surrounding social environment;

4) consumer behaviour of the domestic households is non-rational because of:

a) in the Ukrainian social environment wealthy households formed costly, prestigious model of consumer behaviour, being actively propagated by the media. The poor households fall into the psychological trap of inferiority complex and looking out from it by copying consumer behaviour of the wealthy households;

b) low level of gastronomic culture;

c) the lack of full information to consumers.

In order to partially neutralize the effect of the negative factors that cause irrational consumer behaviour of the households, it is necessary to apply a set of measures. In particular:

1) solving behavioural problems should be connected with the approval of the ruling middle class;

2) using of educational and outreach activities designed to promote public awareness of rejection and condemnation of arrogance material possessions is essential;

3) creation of educational awareness campaign should be worked out aimed at gastronomic culture raising and consumer education of the households.

Management measures development to implement such proposals is a promising direction for further research.

Keywords: Consumer Behaviour; Food Security; Social Environment; Gastronomic Culture; Consumer Information; Household

JEL Classification: D10; Q18

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Received 12.02.2014