The consumption pattern of convenience food: A comparison of different income levels in South Korea

The interest in convenience food has increased over the years. Many researchers have tried to discover what factors affect the consumption of convenience food. Despite the diversity of studies, few studies emphasize a household’s income. The aim of this article is to identify the different consumption patterns between upper, middle, and lower income brackets. Generally, households with higher income consumed more convenience food or the relationship was not significant. However, many convenience foods are regarded as nutritionally unbalanced and have a lower quality. So, the hypothesis cannot be easily confirmed because there are tradeoffs not only between health, as nutrition balance and cost, but also health and convenience. Thus, there is a need to indicate the divergent attributes of buying convenience food in a distinct income group. In addition, the convenience food is subdivided into two distinct categories: convenience food as a substitution for a whole meal (unhealthy) and substitution as part of a diet (healthy). We found that higher income groups purchase healthier convenience food while lower income groups purchase unhealthier convenience food. Also there are distinct attributes that influence the consumption of healthy and unhealthy convenience food.