AWARENESS AND PERCEPTION AMONG STAKEHOLDERS ON PROBIOTIC DAIRY FOODS FROM HEALTH PERSPECTIVE
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Date
2019
Authors
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Publisher
ICAR-NDRI, KARNAL
Abstract
Modern consumers are increasingly interested in their personal health, and expect
the food that they eat to be healthy or even capable of preventing illness. Probiotic-based
food products especifically dairy based, continue to attract a growing interest due to their
promising physiological effects as well as the value they add to the new products from
commercial and scientific point of view. Different indicators showed the changing life-style
of people and their consequences on the health and life style of the human beings. This, in
turn, affects the productivity of a person and nation as well. In this situation, it is very much
needed to focus on the health aspects of the people, changing life-style, foods available, and
our perception. On this context, this study was conducted in the National Capital Territory-
Delhi. Four districts were randomly selected and one market area from each district was
selected purposively. From each market area, 25 consumers and 5 sellers were selected. For
consumers, snowball sampling was adopted. In addition to this, 30 researchers involved in
the process of ‘Research and Development (R & D)’ of probiotics and probiotic dairy foods
were also selected, thereby making the total sample size of 150. Majority of the consumers
happened to be young, male, and had a nuclear family. Most of them had studied up to
graduation level. Among the consumer, their primary source of information was found to be
‘friends and peer group’; while among the researcher, it was found to be scientific journals ;
and for sellers, their primary source of information was found to be ‘friends and peer
group’. Nearly equal proportions of (46% and 45%) consumers were found in medium level
and low level of awareness respectively. Half (50.00 %) of the researchers were found to
have medium level of awareness, and nearly 45 per cent of sellers had low level of
awareness. Consumers mostly had positive perception about the probiotic dairy foods
including its health benefits, its acceptance among consumers. Perceptions among
researchers were also positive including and its effectiveness against diarrhoea, intestinal
infection. Similarly, sellers had positive perception regarding the factors favouring its
demand, satisfaction among consumers. Among different constraints, costly nature of
probiotic dairy food; concern for the viability of the bacterial strains; marketing of such
products in specific urban packet were the main constraints for consumers, researchers and
sellers. “Probiotic dairy foods were mostly available in bigger shops” was the most
common feedback with respect to its availability while “limited accessibility to desired
probiotic dairy foods” was the most common feedback in terms of its accessibility among
others.