Background of Research
As a response to the changing food consumption behaviors, it is necessary to conduct multi-faceted surveys on a continued basis to identify the food consumption trends. However, the government approved statistics regarding food consumption have focused only on the survey on food spending, while the surveys on other areas remained very insufficient. So far there hasn’t been a survey performed to show the overall aspects of food consumption behaviors.
To understand food consumption behaviors in detail and to use them as a useful base of analysis in production and developing a related policy, the representative sampling for food consumption surveys needs to be pursued, and with the samples surveys should be conducted on a regular basis for research and analysis on food consumption behaviors.

Method of Research
For the 2017 survey, we designed a composite sample using newly extracted samples from census output areas of Statistics Korea as well as the 2016 samples.
The areas included in the survey are the consumers’ perception on their food consumption patterns (with regards to food choices, nutrition, health, etc.); food purchase and consumption behaviors; food consumer characteristics; eating out patterns; consumers’ self-evaluation on their food consumption patterns; the current status of food consumption education and promotion; and key policy issues. In this study, a two-step survey was designed. First, the household- level survey was designed to ask questions to the main food purchaser of a household regarding the family’s food consumption status and within family and the characteristics of the household. Secondly, the household member-level survey was designed to ask questions to any household members (13∼74 years of age) with regards to their food consumption status outside of home and individual perceptions on food consumption. When the respondents are adolescents, a different set of questionnaire was used considering their limited experience in terms of food consumption compared with adults.

Research Results and Implications
The survey has found that 39.2% of the households surveyed buy foods twice to three times per week and 40.8% of them buy foods once a week, which indicates that the majority of the households surveyed or 80.0% purchase foods once to three times per week. For the question on the frequent place to visit for grocery shopping, 37.3% said they buy foods at large-scaled discount stores, followed by 29.7% who buy foods at medium or small-sized community grocery stores or supermarkets and 21.7% who visit traditional markets. 30.2% of the households surveyed buy their foods on the Online grocery shop and they gave 3.8 points and 3.7 points on a five-point scale as a score for price level and their satisfaction with quality respectively. Environmentally friendly food buyers who account for 52.3% of the respondents and gave 3.5 points for price level and 3.8 points for their satisfaction with quality. 69.6% of the surveyed households are found to consume functional foods, and in particular specific food supplements such as vitamin (70.3%) and red ginseng/ginseng (55.6%) are consumed at the high percentages.
For the frequency of rice purchase, the households who purchase rice every two to three months account for 58.8%. For the frequency of vegetable purchase, 42.2% of the households surveyed replied once a week and they tend to buy in bulk compared to the small-package purchase (52.8%). For the frequency of fruit purchase, 47.4% said once a week. Adult household members are found to prefer apples and watermelons, while the household members aged 20 or below relatively like strawberries and bananas more. The key consumer considerations for vegetable and fruit purchase include freshness and price. When it comes to fruits, the level of sugar contents is also considered by 15.4% of those surveyed. The key consumer considerations for meat purchase are freshness (32.1%) and country of origin (15.3%). 28.1% of the households surveyed showed no intention to purchase imported beef from the United States, but a relatively high percentage of the respondents (51.9%) expressed ‘intention to eat’ imported beef from Australia. 41.7% of the households surveyed answered ‘no intention to eat’ for imported pork. It is found that kimchi is mostly made by households on their own (47.8%), but still many households are getting kimchi for their own consumption from ‘family members/relatives (43.4%)’.
Housewives surveyed gave 3.5 points for their satisfaction level on a five-point scale with the current food consumption patterns. At the individual level, both adults’ satisfaction score for their food consumption pattern and adolescents’s were 3.6 points. Adults are interested in whether food materials are domestically produced (3.5 points), and the levels of interest in locally produced (3.4 points) and environmentally friendly (3.3 points) food materials are similar. By contrast, adolescents showed relatively lower levels of interest in the characteristics of food materials such as domestic production (3.4 points), local production (3.1 points) or green production (3.0 points).
Those who said the family eat out once per two weeks account for 35.6% and food taste (44.8%) was regarded as the most considered factor to choose restaurants. About 71.8% of the households surveyed use food delivery or take-out services for family dining. When the number of household members is higher, families tend to use more of food delivery or take-out services. The primary choices of delivery/take-out foods are chicken dishes (35.6%) including fried chicken. Those who don’t use food delivery/take-out services cited high prices (26.9%), bad taste (19.6%), and over-use of chemical seasoning (13.2%) as the reasons for avoiding food delivery/take-out services.
The questions on food-related consumer policy show that both adults (37.3%) and adolescents (34.4%) chose ‘ensuring food safety’ as the most important policy.
Around three adolescents and five adults out of ten people were interested in food safety issues, and 58.6% of the adult respondents expressed their intention to pay higher prices for safer foods. On the scale of 1 to 5 where 5 is the highest score for perceived safety, adult and adolescent respondents gave above 3.3 points for the perceived safety on domestic foods, and these are relatively high scores. Imported foods were given around 2.7 points for the perceived safety of individual food items, on the scale of 1 to 5, showing lower scores than their domestic counterparts. For the question on who should play the most important role in food safety management, the food producers top the list followed by the central government, local government, food distributors and food retailers. Concerning the food labeling, adult consumers are found to check prices and the countries of origin most upon purchase of vegetables and meat, but they check the expiry date and country of origin as the priority consideration upon purchase of processed foods. Concerning the awareness of food labeling programs, was questioned, it was found that the country of origin labeling system (95.6%) and the organic farming certification system (90.8%) are the most well known. 37.5% of the adult respondents chose lower grades of elementary school as the best timing for basic food education, followed by higher grades of elementary school (26.0%), middle school students (20.4%) and early childhood (8.9%).
The survey on food consumption behavior is expected to provide the basis for the government when it establishes food policies and for companies when they conduct market analysis. In order to improve the credibility and usability of the survey outcomes, feedback will be collected from the users of statistics and the survey system will be improved accordingly. In addition, close follow-up management and disclosure of survey statistics will be conducted down the road.


Researchers: Lee Kyei-im, Kim Sang-hyo, Heo Seong-yoon, Lim Seung-ju, Park In-ho
Research period: 2017. 1. ∼ 2017. 12.
E-mail address: lkilki@krei.re.kr