CONSUMER BEHAVIOR TOWARDS FUNCTIONAL FOOD IN TURKEY

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR TOWARDS FUNCTIONAL FOOD IN TURKEY

Abstract:

Consumer behavior is the study of individuals, groups, or 0rganizations and the processes they use to select, secure, use, and dispose of products, services, experiences, or ideas to satisfy needs and the impacts that these processes have on the consumer and society. Marketing is the strategy designed for a proto make sure that the consumers will be able to get the product that they are looking for at the right time, right lace. By understanding the consumer spending answers have companies to increase their market share by anticipating he shift in consumer wants. Consumer behavior is the study of how and why people do what they do. People make decisions about what they buy, want, need, or how they will act in regards to a product, service or company. It is crucial to know the consumers behavior to know if a new customer will respond will respond to a new product or service. A recent example of a change in consumer behavior is the eating habits of consumers that dramatically increased the demand for gluten-free (GF) products. Some of the companies monitor change in eating patterns of consumers created GF products to fill the space in the marketplace.

The AUTHORS in their article The Effects of Advertising and Other Marketing Communications on Health-related Consumer Behaviors brings out an interesting concept on food and nutrition advertising. They claim that there is a clue that links the ingredients and the product. The ingredients, therefore, define the brand. In their explanation, they focus on how the researches have investigated on food consumption. This brings out a research conducted by the AUTHORS in their article “Eating with a purpose: Consumer response to functional food health claims in conflicting versus complementary information environments”. There, the researchers concentrated on food and nutrition advertising.

The AUTHORS claimed that medical articles affected the consumption of given products largely. If they claimed that a given element that is found in a given brand has positive effects, then there are those people who would respond by being cautious or consuming the product continuously. In this case, this depended on two subgroups; those that were health conscious and those that were not. Those that were health conscious are those who viewed food ingredient as very important and essential when it comes to consumption. Those that were less health conscious were not affected by these articles and news and their consumption remained the same no matter the implications mentioned. On the other hand, those that are health conscious proceeded to consume the food more often due to the implications are given on the positive side of consuming the elements..

Key  Word:

INTRODUCTION:

Health has been named as the most significant trend and innovation driver in the global food and drinks market. The definition of health is no longer restricted to the absence of disease, but it includes physical as well as mental and psychological well-being. Eating functional food is not sufficient in itself to make us healthier, but functional food products are an important part of a sustainable and healthy diet. Nowadays, food is not only required for body development, growth and maintenance, but it is also recognized to play a key role in the quality of life.

The term “functional food” (FF) refers to a food that provides a health benefit as well as nutrients. The term can also refer to whole foods, to fortified, enriched or enhanced foods, and dietary supplements that have the potential to improve mental and physical well-being and reduce the risk of diseases. The ingredients responsible for this benefit can be naturally present or may have been added during processing. The concept was first introduced in Japan in the 1980s and further developed in the United States and in Europe, although nowadays there is a global (and growing) market for “functional foods”. ACCORDING TO, functional foods represent one of the most interesting areas of research and innovation in the food industry, and particularly for this industry, innovation is an important source of differentiation and a value-adding opportunity for managers to develop new products. Hence, innovation constitutes a competitive advantage in the globalized agri-food scenario.

Food is basically related to the component necessary for many life sustaining functions such as production of energy, supply of nutrients, support of various metabolic activities besides growth and maintenance of the body. In the early of twenty first century, consumers are increasingly concerned about their health and pay more attention to their lifestyle together with the healthiness of their diet. A continuous increase in life expectancy with greater attention to the quality of food started. Some reasons such as transitional health, urbanization and its effect, changing demography with the aging population, food security, loss of traditional food culture and deterioration in health caused the development of functional foods.

Also, diet-disease links have been forged over the past 50 years in nutritional science, which have been important in the introduction of functional foods to the commercial market. According to the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization, some dietary patterns along with lifestyle habits constitute major modifiable risk factors in relation to the development of coronary heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis and periodontal disease. In this regard, functional foods play an outstanding role. The term functional food itself was first used in Japan, in the 1980s, for food products fortified with special constituents that possess advantageous physiological effects and became one of the most interesting areas for the field of food science and drives the innovation in this field. Functional food products have been defined as providing an added health benefit over and above the food products traditional nutritional. They are differing from conventional foods and are also members of the particular food category.

Hippocrates said, “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” more than 2000 years ago. Today, studies and clinical trials suggested numerous health effects related to functional food consumption, such as reduction of cancer risk, improvement of heart health, enhancement of immune functions, lowering of menopause symptoms, improvement of gastrointestinal health, anti-inflammatory effects, reduction of blood pressure, antibacterial and antiviral activities and reduction of osteoporosis. Functional foods can be designed or be traditional and contain dietary antioxidants,

Functional foods also reduce the risks of particular diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, high blood pressure, cholesterol, sugar, ulcer and diarrhea. “Designer food, functional food and fortified food” are the synonyms which refer to the food fortified or enriched with nutrient content already present in them or other complementary nutrients, or they can be understood as “foods that are tailor-made to meet any specific requirement in terms of functionality, nutrition, convenience and therapeutic aspects”. They are prepared by manipulating the formulations or engineered genetically or by other conventional means to provide the desired function.

Functional Foods

Foods that provide the body with positive health effect beyond essential nutrition are known as functional foods. They help to promote optimal health in the body preventing from the risk of disease. One of the most renowned functional foods is the oatmeal which contains soluble fibrous material that is that has proven to lower cholesterol level in adults and the elderly. Others are modified to have beneficial effects like the orange. Juices from orange are fortified with calcium to improve bone health. Administration controls the manufacturing of fortified functional foods. Lots of caution is taken when choosing functional food since overindulgence can lead to poor eating habit.

Oat beta-glucans is rich in dietary soluble fibers (1, 3/1,4) beta-glucan more than any other grain. it slows digestion thus allowing for extension of fullness, reduce the blood sugar, and increase the normal flora in the digestive tract. It has been proven to lower the LDL cholesterol in the body, especially for metabolic syndrome. Oat is also loaded with a variety of protein that acts as an immune booster to the body. It has been proven to contain potent antioxidants compounds like avenanthramides. This compound helps in reducing blood pressure by increasing nitric oxide production. Avenanthramides have anti-inflammatory and anti-itching properties.

Beta-glucan have proven to be beneficial to people suffering from diseases like cancer, HIV/AIDS, high blood pressure, canker sores, diabetes, and high cholesterol. Others condition that is relieved through the eating of oat beta-glucan is Crohn’s disease, wrinkles, dermatitis fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, Lyme disease, swine flu to mention but a few. Beta-glucan lowers blood cholesterol through inhibition of absorption of cholesterol from the food in the small intestines and stomach during ingestion. When giving a jab of beta-glucan is given through injection, it stimulates the immune system through increasing the chemicals that stop infections. Some of the leading high beta-glucan oats products globally include the Glucan Elite produced by the Pro Formulations MD, beta-1,3D Glucan manufactured by Transfer, beta (1,6)-D-Glucan made by now foods, beta glucan β1,3/ B1,6 by Jarrow Formulas and Beta-Glucan Purified Beta produced by Source Naturals.

Thesis/Research Problem Statement:

After the introduction of functional food term in 1980s, production and marketing of functional food in Japan, USA and European markets has developed rapidly. Compared to these developed countries, the market size of the functional food in Turkey is very limited. Convenience food products have gained great popularity in the past decade. However, the nutritional value of these products may be poor. Although it is only the total food pattern that can be qualified as healthy, the chance to realize this is lower as the proportion of nutritionally poor products is greater. Moreover, it is an empirically proven fact that socio-demographic factors for instance: age, gender, income, occupation among others play a significant role in identifying consumers’ purchase decision making. Ideally, the socio‐demographic characteristics such as age, education and income levels, and prices are key or important indicators or factors influencing the consumers’ behavior towards of functional foods in Turkey.

In Turkey, Functional traditional foods are obtained by some old techniques applied to prevent food from perishing, such as fermentation. Kefir, pickles and tarhana are examples of these kinds of foods and an important part of the Turkish diet. Tarhana is a food obtained by drying, grinding and sieving after fermentation of dough kneaded. Kefir is fermented milk product and is the most natural probiotics ever known. Kefir grains contain lactic acid bacteria, acetic acid bacteria and yeasts and can be regarded as food. In addition, pickle, which is consumed throughout the world, is another type of fermented food. Pickle can be obtained from various fruits and vegetables. These fermented foods are functional foods, which contain compounds such as probiotics and bioactive compounds, and have been consumed for centuries. By the virtue of these eating habits, some functional foods are familiar types of food for people. The purpose of this study is to investigate consumers’ awareness, acceptance and attitudes towards functional foods in Turkey.

Objective Statement

The main objective of this research study is to perform a comprehensive and candid evaluation of the following:

• Understanding the consumer trends, attitudes and behavior in Turkey with Euromonitor data results, market research and literature review;
• Showing how functional food market liders, trends, opportunities and threats in Turkey
• Explain the demand for specific products and services in Turkey; and
• Informing our marketing, brand, strategy and market development, sales and supply functions.

Framework/Model: Consumer Behavior Theory

Literature Review

The term functional food was first introduced in Japan in 1980s, which refers to processed foods containing ingredients that aid specific body functions in addition to being nutritious. While the steps in developing functional food are somewhat consistent across the world, the meaning of functional food is changing between countries, such as Japan, Europe and the USA. They do not have a single legislative definition for functional food, leading to numerous global consequences.

The lack of a consistent definition between countries has led to unregulated publishing of health claims in some, limiting of functional food production in others and an overall mistrust or unclear sense of what functional food is among government officials, public health professionals and the public.  World wide research has taken place down the line and varied definitions of functional food ranging from very simple to very complex as proposed by various authorities, academic bodies and industries.

While functional food has generated billions of dollars in sales worldwide, the lack of a standard definition has prevented functional food scientists from delivering functional food to chronically ill populations. The concept of functional food was first promoted in 1984 by Japanese scientists. In 1991, the Ministry of Health introduced rules for approval of a specific health-related food category called Food for Specified Health Uses (FOSHU), which included the establishment of specific health claims for this type of food

The “FOSHU”system regulates health promises in food packages to prevent problems that may be caused by false or exaggerated health promises and from 1993 onwards, some selected functional food products have obtained the medical representation that had not previously been allowed for any food. The first one of these foods is Fine Rice, which is intensively and immunologically produced by enzyme technology. The number of FOSHU brands is increasing and reached 1,095 marks in 2013. In Japan, the term functional food has changed several times over the past 30 years and it has not obtained a clear meaning.

These uncertain definitions of functional foods often are mixed up with nutraceuticals and their meanings change from country to country. In the mid-1990s, classifications such as nutraceuticals, f (ph) arma foods, medifoods, vitafoods and designed foods and their definitions were generally made in the form of health-promoting or disease inhibiting foods, but they have different purposes in their essence. For this reason, defining all these classifications as the same type of food and classifying them under the same heading will lead to a confusion and cause ambiguity.

It is confusing that a clear definition of functional foods cannot be created and that different food categories can be used in similar ways. This ambiguity makes it difficult to determine which food products can be regarded as functional foods and how many of them are included in the functional food market to be able to take efficient, consumer-oriented actions; a common conclusion must be reached based on functional food expression.

Types of functional foods in Turkey

The development of functional foods began with nutrients such as vitamins (vitamin C and vitamin E), minerals (folic acid, zinc, iron and calcium). Later, micro-nutrients such as omega-3 fatty acid, phytosterol and soluble fiber were added to the food to strengthen the food. Thus, the health benefits of food have been strengthened and they

have gained important functions such as reducing the incidence of diseases such as

cancer. Despite the growing interest in functional foods and the growth rate of the industry, it is still not clear which foods should be evaluated under the name of functional foods.

Although functional foods do not have a homogeneous structure, they can be evaluated in every food category. Probiotics, prebiotics, functional drinks, functional cereals, bakery products, spreads, functional meats and functional eggs are main examples of the types of functional. In Turkey, the most advanced category of functional foods is the dairy products such as kefir, quark, yogurt and altered milk. According to study BY THE AUTHORS, functional foods are classified as:

• Fortified products: These are foods enriched with a specific food ingredient (Vitamin C supplemented fruit juices).
• Enriched products: These are foods with additional nutrients or components that are not normally found in a particular food (plant sterols additive margarines).
• Altered products: These are foods that have been removed a harmful component or replaced with a healthy component (using degreaser ability of the fibers in ice cream and meats).
• Enhanced commodities: This means increasing a component or increase omega 3 ratio in the egg. Besides the classification above, functional foods are also classified in different forms.

According to an alternative classification BY THE AUTHORS, they are also classified as:

• Life contributors (e.g. improving prebiotic and probiotics, stomach and colon health);
• Developed for a specific health problem (e.g. to improve high cholesterol and high blood pressure); and make our life easier (e.g. lactose-free milk, gluten-free products).

The Global Market of functional foods

With the advancing technology and improvements in food science, the product variety has increased significantly and the category has been diversified. The interest in functional foods has started in the early 1990s, becoming one of the fast growing sectors of the global food industry. As a concept, functional foods emerged in Japan in the 1980s, but its origin goes back to 1955 with a probiotic product called Yakult, which entered the market at that time. After the presentation of Yakult to the market, spreads containing

Polyunsaturated fatty acids developed by Unilever in the 1960s under the brands of Becel and Flora are also the first functional foods with specific health claim.

Currently, the functional foods have been reported as the top trend facing the food industry. It is explained by substantial strategic and operational efforts by leading food, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies during the 1990s. At the end of the 1990s, the annual growth rate of the functional food market was found to be between 15 and 20 per cent. The market of functional foods in industrialized countries has expanded rapidly. Value sales had risen by 40 per cent over the period from 2003 to 2008.

The global market potential for functional foods and beverages has been estimated to be $192bn in 2020. The rise of functional foods market is mainly due to a series of critical awareness of personal health. According to a Euromonitor survey,

Japan is the world’s largest market, followed by the USA, and European market still appears to be less developed. These three big markets contribute to over 90 per cent of the total sales. More than 1,700 functional food products have been launched in

Japan between 1988 and 1998. In the European countries, the major important markets are Germany, France and Italy. Hungary, Poland and Russia are in a growing market category. According to the results, European market has heterogeneous structure, because of large regional differences in use and acceptance of functional foods. The interest of consumers in functional food in the central and northern European countries is higher than that in Mediterranean countries, where consumers have appreciated natural fresh foods and consider them better for health.

In the north European countries such as Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands, functional foods are consumed by a high percentage of the population, where in Belgium, percentage of functional foods’ consumers is not as high. The functional food industry in Brazil had a growth rate of 11 per cent in the period 2006 and 2007 with a market size was over US$6bn. Growth is expected to continue at a rate greater than 10 per cent annually. In China, the total functional foods market was approximately US$6bn per year, which doubled at 2010.

Market of functional foods in Turkey

Turkey is one of the biggest countries in Europe with the 80 million population. When compared to the leading countries, functional food consumption is very low. This situation can be considered as a commercial opportunity. Demand for the packaged functional food is mainly driven by the rising urban population in the big cities that include people who have hectic lifestyles and are mainly concerned about not obtaining sufficient nutrition from their food.

According to Euromonitor International (2017) (Table I), China and USA are still the world’s largest market followed by Japan, and the European market is the less developed compared to Japan and USA as explained in the study of Bigliardi and Galati (2013). In the literature, the data that was used for the comparison between countries’ market size generally based on total expenditure rates. But total expenditure rate changes with population size. For example, China has highest total expenditure (US$33.014m) of functional food and lowest expenditure (US$23.9m) per capita. Depending on the size of the population, although market share is seen as biggest, consumption per capita may be very low. This makes confusing in some situations. That is why in this research, both values were used to evaluate market growth rates between countries. Functional foods in the USA was started to sell in the early 2000s, showed rapid growth and reached 50 per cent of the total market size. Functional food consumption had an impressive growth during recent five years with 52 per cent. But when compared to the European countries, it was still limited.

In total, 52 per cent of the increase in the market sale of functional food in the recent five years indicated changing attitudes of Turkey consumer preferences positively. emand for functional foods is growing, presenting a lucrative opportunity to develop. The most consumed dairy products are yogurt, ayran, cheese and kefir, and they are the source of probiotics. They are described as cultures of live microorganisms that affect the host beneficially by improving the properties of the indigenous microflora. Probiotics are beneficial microorganisms that cannot be digested and stimulate the health of beneficial bacteria in the body and affect the health in a positive way.

According to the available data in 2017, Turkey’s market size growth was found to be 10 per cent compared to the previous, year and the functional milk was the most growing category with a 25 per cent increase over the year 2016. Products such as Milupa, Vivident, Bebelac and Becel were the products sold in the biggest market share. The names of the leading companies were Numil Gıda, Perfetti, Nestle, Yıldız Holding and in total, 52 per cent growth rate of functional foods between 2012 and 2017 showed that Turkey consumers have great potential for functional food consumption. Dairy foods were the most consumed product type and that is why Turkey companies may focus on dairy products to increase functional food market share.

Labeling and regulations of functional foods in the world and Turkey

Individual countries have their own legislation on functional foods and legislative aspects are one of the important key factors in the process of production and marketing. Because of changing regulatory systems from country to country, they should be analyzed and evaluated well. Some countries treat natural health products in a similar manner to food. Japan and China are the examples of this, making little or no legal or regulatory distinction between food and pill forms. Some countries have a body that regulates the use of health claims (e.g.Health Canada in Canada, the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] in the USA, The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in Japan, the Korean Food and Drug Administration, the State Food and Drug Administration in China and the Food Control Department in Singapore).

Historically,some governments permitted health claims but left it up to private interests to regulate their use (UK and Sweden). Other countries have decided to cooperatively develop regulations together on health and nutrition claims (e.g. European Union, Australia and New Zealand). In USA, health claims need the USA FDA’s approval. The statements describe a relationship between a food component (or a dietary supplement ingredient) and a disease or health-related. FDA approves three types of health claims:

(1) Claims based on Significant Scientific Agreement;

(2) Claims based on authoritative statement; and

(3) Qualified health claims.