Analysis of Consumption Patterns of Probiotic Incorporated Fermented Dairy Products in Sri Lanka
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Date
2021
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Publisher
Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka
Abstract
Probiotic dairy foods are considered as one of the major functional food substances in the world.
Consumers have been more health conscious in recent years, and as a result, they are seeking more
information on how to live a healthy life consuming good food. Probiotic and probiotic products are
having the possibility to attract those health-conscious consumers because of their health promoting
effects and lower cost. To our knowledge there are no studies that analyze the consumer demand for
probiotic fermented dairy products in Sri Lanka. This study focused on analyzing the consumer
knowledge, attitudes, socio-demographic and economic factors that affect the consumption pattern of
probiotic fermented dairy products in Sri Lanka. A total of 405 households from all nine provinces in
Sri Lanka were surveyed with an online questionnaire. According to the results, 46% of the
respondents have awareness of probiotics. Probiotic consumption was categorized into 4 levels as not
at all, low, medium, and high based on the probiotic consumption per week. The study showed that
53% of the respondents belongs to low-level consumption category, 27% have medium level
consumption, 9% are in high-level consumption category and 11% of the responders never consumed
probiotic incorporated dairy products. An ordered logistic regression model was employed to analyze
the relationships between probiotic consumption level and the number of demographics, socio-
economic characteristics of consumers such as gender, age, marital status, household size, presence
of children, household income, locality, education level, attitudes on health and nutrition aspects,
attitude on sensory aspects, advertisement aspects and poor availability of probiotic dairy products.
The results reveal that probiotic consumption level is significantly and positively influenced by
gender, marital status, household income, advertisements, and consumer‟s attitude on health and
negatively influenced by household size and poor availability. Findings of this study give useful
information to producers for their production and marketing strategies which are most suitable to fit
with the demand characteristics and consumer expectations.
Keywords: Probiotic; Dairy Products; Consumption Patterns; Ordered Logistic Regression; Sri Lanka
Description
Keywords
Agriculture, Animal Sciences, Animal Production, Dairy Industries