New Trends in Chinese Diet: Cultural Influences on Consumer Behavior

Abstract

Although the Chinese market is traditionally characterized by a gastronomic culture which is profoundly different from its Western counterpart, the emerging social classes is expressing a growing demand for processed food, opening up to foreign influences, which are neither accepted with prejudice nor viewed passively.
This paper analyzes of the propensity of consumers to include in the ancient Chinese culinary culture food products from other countries. A market segmentation of the Chinese consumers was performed, according their degree of cultural openness towards non-Chinese food, taking into account both socio-demographic and cognitive and psychographic variables. The research was carried out by administering a questionnaire to 500 Chinese consumers, living in urban areas, including a consumer analysis of the "values" and the "lifestyle".
The results seem to confirm the relevant potential of the Chinese market as a destination for quality western products. The cognitive and modern approach in the market segmentation, provides a Chinese consumer profile “open mind” that is very useful for the implementation of policies for specific marketing and promotion strategies.