British Food Journal

Purpose – This study was conducted with the aim of determining the food purchasing behaviour of consumers from supermarkets.

Design/methodology/approach – A total of 430 consumers, 194 males and 236 females, with an average age of 29.96 ±10.99 were included in this study, and was conducted to find out the criteria which consumers took into account while purchasing food.

Findings – A significant relationship was determined between the scores the consumers received from nutrition, the reliability and all of the shopping criteria, and their level of education (p < 0.05) between the percentage of income spared for nutrition (p < 0.01) and between the cost (p < 0.05) and the total scores received from all of the shopping criteria (p < 0.01). It was also determined that women paid more attention to the nutrition and reliability criteria than men did (p < 0.05).

Research limitations/implications – The research is restricted in so far as it only considers consumers in the big city and as it is an exploratory study the research is limited in so far as the number of participants is only 430. Further research needs to include other big and small cities.

Practical implications – The study has concluded that consumers need effective and versatile education in the subjects of label reading and buying the right kind of food for their budgets. It is revealed that consumer education is essential in the process from cradle to grave in creating the awareness of consumers to buy food.

Originality/value – The paper is useful to both practitioners and academics in the fields of relationship consumer and marketing. Informing and training consumers will help increase the awareness of consumers and make them behave more rationally in their shopping. It will lead the studies to be carried out in the future to activate the control of the consumers on their shopping, instead of losing the control of consumers.