2019 식품소비행태조사 기초분석보고서

Abstract

식품소비 관련 통계는 지출액이나 개별 식품의 구입 행태 등의 조사로 한정되어 있어서 빠르게 변화하는 소비자의 식품소비 트렌드를 파악하는 데 한계가 있었다. 사회적 여건 변화에 대응하여 식품소비행태를 구체적으로 파악하고, 식품산업 발전과 식품의 원활한 수급 및 식품자원의 효율적 이용을 위해서는 대표성 있는 식품소비조사 표본을 구축하여 식품소비행태에 대한 주기적이고 체계적인 조사·분석이 필요한 시점이다.

한국농촌경제연구원에서는 2013년부터 객관적이고 신뢰할만한 식품소비행태 통계를 구축하기 위해 ‘식품소비행태조사’를 실시하고 있다. 이 조사는 통계청의 인구주택총조사 자료를 이용하여 표본에서 전국적인 대표성을 확보하고자 하며, 조사 내용은 가구 내 식품소비행태뿐만 아니라 외식 행태, 라이프 스타일, 농식품 소비자 역량과 식품의 표시‧안전성 등 식생활 전반에 관한 인식을 포함한다.

Background of Research As a response to the changes in food consumption behavior, it is necessary to conduct multi-faceted surveys on a regular basis in order to identify the food consumption trends. However, given the government-approved statistics regarding food consumption have focused only on food expenditure, the surveys on the other areas remained very insufficient. So far there has not been a survey that performs to shed light on the overall aspects of food consumption behavior in South Korea. To understand food consumption behavior in detail and to utilize the information as a useful base of analyses on food production arena and development of a related set of policies, a consumer behavior survey for food for the representative sampling of Korean households needs to be regularly pursued, followed by conducting researches on food consumption behaviors based on that survey.

Method of Research For the 2019 survey, we designed a composite sample using newly extracted sample from census output areas of Statistics Korea as well as the 2018 sample. The areas included in the survey are consumers’ perception on their food consumption patterns (with regards to food choices, nutrition, health, and so on); food purchase and consumption behaviors; socioeconomic characteristics; eating out patterns; consumers’ evaluation on their dietary life and related policies; the current status of education and promotion related to food consumption; and key policy issues. In this study, a two-step survey has been designed. First, the household-level survey was designed to ask questions to the main food purchaser of a household regarding the household’s food consumption status and the characteristics of the household. Second, the household member-level survey was designed to ask questions on dietary life and food consumption to household members (aged 13∼74 years) with regards to their food consumption patterns away from home and individual perceptions on dietary life and related policies. 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 42.1% of the households surveyed purchase food once a week and 41.4% of them purchase food twice to three times per week. This finding indicates that the majority (83.5%) of the households purchases food once to three times a week. It also found that the households spend about 60,000 Korean Won at a time to purchase food on average. For the question asking the frequent place to visit for grocery shopping, 32.9% responded that they purchase food at large-scaled discount stores, followed by 28.4% who purchase food at medium- or small-sized community grocery stores or supermarkets and 20.2% who visit medium- or small-sized supermarkets operated by large food companies. About 44.6% of the households in the survey have experience to purchase food on the online grocery malls, and on average 20.4% of entire food consumption are purchased online for those who have experience. The households evaluated 3.72 points and 3.76 points on a five-point scale for their satisfaction with price and quality of food they purchase, respectively. Those who have experience to purchase environment-friendly food account for 58.7% of the respondents and evaluate 3.45 points and 3.71 points out of 5.0 points for their satisfaction respectively with price and quality of the environment-friendly food they purchase. About 80% of the households in the survey are found to consume health-functional food, and in particular specific food supplements such as vitamin and minerals (56.6%) and red ginseng/ginseng (39.5%) are consumed most. For the frequency of rice purchase, the households who purchase rice every two to three months account for 60.2%. For the frequency of vegetable purchase, 45.8% of the households surveyed replied ‘once a week’, and consumers tend to purchase vegetable in a bulk form (53.3%) compared to the package form. For the frequency of fruit purchase, 53.2% said once a week. Adult in the surveyed households are found to prefer apples and watermelons, while the household members aged 20 or below relatively prefer strawberries, cherries and bananas more. The key considerations by consumer while they are purchasing vegetable and fruit include freshness, price level, and country of origin. When it comes to fruit, the level of sugar content is also importantly considered. The key considerations by consumer for meat consumption are freshness (31.3%) and country of origin (17.2%). About 30% of the households surveyed showed no intention to purchase imported beef from the United States, but a relatively high percentage of the respondents (48.3%) expressed ‘intention to try’ imported beef from Australia. About 41% of the households surveyed answered ‘no intention to try’ for imported pork. It is found that Kimchi is made by about one third of households on their own (37.9%), but many households are getting Kimchi for their own consumption from ‘family members/relatives (47.8%).’ Housewives surveyed evaluated 3.47 points out of 5.0 points for their level of satisfaction with their current dietary life. At the individual level, adults’ level of satisfaction with their dietary life was 3.59 points and 3.65 for adolescents. Adults are interested in whether food materials are domestically produced (3.47 points), locally produced (3.36 points), and environment-friendly produced (3.28 points). By contrast, adolescents showed relatively lower levels of interest in the characteristics of food materials such as domestic production (3.26 points), local production (3.14 points), and green production (3.08 points). Those eating out with their family once per two weeks account for 30.8%, and food taste (33.0%) was regarded as the most considered factor to choose restaurants for them. About 73.5% 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 food are chicken dishes (38.9%) including fried chicken. Those who do not use food delivery or take-out services cited high prices (23.1%), over-use of chemical seasoning (16.3%), and bad taste (14.1%) as the reasons for avoiding food delivery or take-out services. Around three adolescents and five adults out of ten people were interested in food safety issues, and 61.4% of the adult respondents expressed their intention to pay higher prices for safer food. Assuming that the score is 100 points when the food safety was perfectly managed, adults and adolescents rated the overall food safety in Korea as 76.3 and 77.0 points. 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 vegetable and meat, but they check the expiry date and country of origin as the priority consideration upon purchase of processed food. Regarding the awareness of food labeling, it was found that the country of origin labeling (92.2%) and the organic farming certification system (89.4%) are most known. About 40% of the adult respondents chose lower grades of elementary school as the best timing for basic dietary education, followed by higher grades of elementary school (20.8%), early childhood (17.6%), and middle school students (16.0%). The consumption behavior survey for food is expected to provide the basis for the government when it establishes food policies and for food companies when they conduct market analysis. In order to improve the credibility and usability of the survey results, feedback needs to be collected from the users of statistics, and then the survey will be improved accordingly. In addition, close follow-up management and disclosure of survey statistics will be conducted down the road.

Researchers: Kim Sang-Hyo, Lee Kyei-im, Heo Seong-yoon, Choi Jae-Hyun, Shin Seong-Yong and Park In-ho Research period: 2019. 1. ∼ 2019. 12. E-mail address: skim@krei.re.kr