14C-1

J. J. Chen, Food Science Department, Tunghai University, 17-10A Tunghai Road, Taichung, 407, Taiwan, H. S. Li, Food Marketing, Food Research and Development Institute (FIRDI), P.O. Box.246, Hsinchu, Taiwan, S. M. WANG, Food Marketing, FIRDI, P.O. BOX 246, Hsinchu, Taiwan, and H. C. Huang, Food Processing, Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, Nainhai Road, Taipei, Taiwan.

Food qualities and food prices are key factors which affecting consumer's purchasing foods. High qualities and low prices are those consumers pursued to. Under the constrains of consumer's income and endowments, personal food expenditures may implies a suitable combination of food qualities and food prices for oneself. In this study, we assumed that under the constraint of consumer's personal income and related demographic factors, food expenditures increased as the degrees of consumer paying attention to food qualities, and decreased as the degrees of consumer paying attention to food prices. The objective is to identify how the consumer's attitudes to food qualities and prices affecting his/her food consumption under the constraints of personal income and related demographic factors. The data obtained from a nationwide survey of food consumption in Taiwan by the Food Industry Research and Development Institute in 1999. The questions of the degrees of how one paid attention to food qualities and prices were used as a questionnaire. Logistic regression model was used to explore how demographic factors and consumer's attitudes to food qualities and prices affected personal monthly food expenditures. It was found that the female, the older, the size of family, those who lived in the north and students had relatively less personal monthly food expenditures were with relevant odd ratios less than 1. However, the coefficient of food prices is not significant statistically. The result partially proved our hypothesis that the dollars of food sales come from food expenditures, to increase food qualities may increase food expenditures, and then may increase food sales. As to food prices, to increase food prices may not significantly affect the purchasing of food and may not affect food expenditures.