DETERMINANTS OF FOOD AWAY FROM HOME AMONG AFRICAN-AMERICANS

type of food), Southern (41.8%), Asian (37.5%), fried chicken type (37.1%), ethnic European (35.5%) in
fifth which was followed closely by Steak house type food (33.8%). It is notable that Asian food was
preferred over several other types of food for dinner rather than for lunch.

In terms of choice of outlets, i.e., type of restaurants that African-American consumers frequent more
often or prefer when eating out, Table 3 (column 1) shows that they overwhelmingly preferred fast
food places (e.g., McDonalds) for lunch (54.9% respondents prefer this type of outlets). The second
preference was (33.3%) chicken type restaurants (e.g., KFC), followed by pizza type (29.3%) and
cafeteria type restaurants (26.2%). Diner or family style restaurants and Mexican fast food places (e.g.,
Taco Bell) were at a distant fifth and sixth. There was a good shake-up in the ranking when it comes to
dinner (Table 3, column 2); most African-American consumers preferred diner or family style
restaurants over all other choices (66.3%). All types of ethnic restaurants followed as the second most
preferred category (58.7%), followed by fine dining (43.3%) and chicken type restaurants as the third
and fourth most preferred restaurant categories. Pizza type restaurants followed at a distant fifth
place (26.6%).

Consumers are faced with a variety of decision making factors regarding when and where to eat their
meals away from home. The most important factor influencing FAFH outlet and food choices for
African-Americans was not different from the rest of the FAFH consumers, i.e., it was taste and quality
of food (Table 4). This is because almost all respondents (91.2%) of the respondents ranked it as
number 1 factor in choosing a place to eat or type of food when eating out. The other attributes that
were ranked very highly were good service (76.8%), convenience (74.1%), product consistency (66.8%),
ambience (63.7%), availability of healthy food (60.4%), and low price ranked at last (48.2%) as a factor.
Given the relatively lower income level of African-Americans compared to the white-Americans, we

<<   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   >>

More intriguing information