Situational Factors, Individual Factors, Marketing Factors and Behavior of Bread Consumers in Kenya

Abstract

Globally, the demand for baked products has been on the rise and expected to grow by 13% by 2025 for a variety of bakes, and bread segment alone is projected to generate revenue worth US$448,266m. African market is expected to grow by 6.9%, while Kenyan market is expected to grow by 6.7 %for the next 20 years. Despite this projected growth rate, not much research has been carried out to understand the predictors of consumer behavior in regard to the amount of bread bought. This is despite the fact that, knowledge of the outcome of consumer buying behavior assists firms in planning and implementing their marketing strategies. The purpose of this study is to analyze the factors influencing behavior of bread consumers in Kenya. Factors considered for this study were grouped into three: situational, personal characteristics and marketing factors. Primary data was collected from 1230 adult consumers in Kiambu and Thika towns of Kenya, and was analyzed quantitatively. Descriptive statistics was only used when analyzing the profile of the respondents. Multiple regression analysis was carried out to determine the effects of the explanatory variables on the dependent variable (amount of bread bought per week). From the results, the following variables had significant effect: time of the day (morning) (Coef 0.250, P-value 0.000), retail out let atmospherics (display) (Coef 0.263, P-value 0.000),Availability((Coef 0.113, P-value 0.000), Importance for brand name and logo(important) (Coef 0.250, P-value 0.000), Age(Coef 0.001, P-value 0.000), stage in family life(married) (Coef 0.038, P-value 0.008), health consciousness(high) (Coef 0.118, P-value 0.000),Price (Coef 0.0369, P-value 0.000), Income(Coef 0.0121, P-value 0.010). However, consumers’ gender was insignificant (Coef 0.118, P-value 0.00). The findings are important since they could guide bakers and retailers when developing their marketing strategies, mainly communication, pricing, product development and distribution strategies.