14C-3

P. C. P. CHEN¹, L. T. Shih¹, and H. S. Lee². (1) Dept. of Food Science, Tung-Hai University, P.O.Box 962, Tung-Hai Univ., Taichung, Taiwan, 407, 13-15B, Tung-Hai Rd., Taichung, Taiwan 407, Taiwan, (2) Food Industry Research and Development Institute

A study of consumers' perception on food product between private brand and national brand in Taiwan

Published data indicates that the sales of private label food product (PB) has reached above 30% of total food sales in European countries, and 45% in Switzerland in 1997; while in Taiwan, it's only in beginning stage. It's important to understand consumers' perception towards private label food products. A survey was conducted in Taichung to interview consumer who bought private label food product in 1999. Study aims to investigate consumers' perception and evaluation toward private label food product according to 5 different attributes of product: the valuation on the brand name, the flavoring, food packaging, product safety and food quality. The hedonic pricing method is employed to study the willingness to pay for the five different attributes. The comparison between private brand (PB) and national brand (NB) is also studied. It's found that consumers' willingness to pay for the brand name is the highest among the 5 attributes for NB products (36.27% of price listed), while consumers' willingness to pay for quality is the highest among the 5 attributes for PB products (46.39% of price listed). Consumers' perception for the brand name attribute significantly differs between NB and PB, but are not so for other attributes. It's also found who shops 3 times a week, age varies from 35 to 44 with household income distributed from 50 to 100 thousand per month, have higher evaluation on PB products, therefore, are the potential target market. It's suggested that other than physical product differentiation, the NB producer should emphasize on the image product differentiation to increase consumers' willingness to pay for their brand name. The PB channel retailers should emphasize on analyzing information of consumer's behavior to increase their market share for future market expanding.