Passionate about food: exploring “foodie” segmentation by nutritional knowledge

• Published in: The Journal of consumer marketing Vol. 39; no. 7; pp. 678 - 690
• Main Authors: Gunarathne, Anoma, Hemmerling, Sarah, Labonte, Naemi, Zühlsdorf, Anke, Spiller, Achim
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Santa Barbara Emerald Publishing Limited 17.11.2022; Emerald Group Publishing Limited
• Subjects: Celebrities; Consciousness; Consumers; Cooking; Culture; Festivals; Food products; Preferences; Product differentiation; Qualitative research; Recipes; Social networks; United States > US; Germany; Foodies; Nutritional knowledge; Exploratory factor analysis; Consumer segmentation; Germany
• ISSN: 0736-3761; 2052-1200; 0736-3761
• DOI: 10.1108/JCM-10-2019-3470

Purpose This paper aims to empirically identify foodie features and examine their relevance in segmenting German consumers. Furthermore, this study explored potential differences between foodie segments in terms of food involvement and food knowledge. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 500 German respondents in October 2015 by means of two online surveys using a newly developed version of the foodie instrument based on existing literature. Confirmatory factor analysis, cluster analysis, analysis of variance and post hoc tests were applied to analyse the data. Findings Six distinct consumer segments were identified: passionate foodies (12.0%), interested foodies (21.5%); moderate foodies (21.7%), traditional foodies (17.1%), light foodies (18.2%) and non-foodies (9.5%). The nutritional knowledge questionnaire suggests that passionate foodies have only an average level of food literacy compared to other segments. Research limitations/implications Behavioural traits and socio-demographic characteristics of foodies and other culinary consumer segments could be time-sensitive, thus future research should take a longitudinal approach so that subsequent decision-making is appropriately dynamic. Originality/value To the best of the authors' knowledge, this paper is a first step towards the development of a new foodie lifestyle scale which will be useful to identify, characterise and develop effective marketing strategies for targeting highly involved food consumers.