Consumer perception of traditional Indonesian foods: case studies using tempe in different contexts

Publikation: Bog/antologi/afhandling/rapportPh.d.-afhandling

  • Dwi Larasatie Nur Fibri
The increasing volume of imported food in Indonesia shows the country’s dependency on food supply from other countries. On the other hand, Indonesia is one of the seventeen megadiverse countries. In theory, it has an abundance of food and Indonesia should not need to depend on another country for their food. Before the green revolution happened in 1966, Indonesians ate a variety of carbohydrate and protein food sources. One of the impacts of green revolution was the shift of Indonesian food/eating pattern to mainly rice as a carbohydrate source and soybean as a protein source. Fifty years after that, Indonesia has become the largest importer of rice and soybean. The drive to returning to locally sourced food has increased in recent years in Indonesia. This is exemplified by the rise of the slow food movement, and the increased number of organic/sustainable farmers and farming practices. This PhD project aimed to investigate some of the key elements to be considered to successfully re-invigorate tempe from local varieties of beans to the young generation in Indonesia in meal context. The first study of the project is an online survey that examined the concept of traditional product in different levels of modernisation. In general, Indonesian consumers agree on the perception of traditional and modern food. The traditional products were liked better and perceived as more natural, original, authentic than the modernised version. This result shows consumers’ potential interest in traditional products. Among the six types of tested products, tempe showed the highest diversity in perceived level of modernisation. Based on the first study, tempe was chosen as a case study for further experiments. The second study is a laboratory experiment to examine the effect of information on consumers’ sensory, collative, and emotion perception of different types of tempe in terms of raw material and level of modernisation in a simple tempe preparation. The information significantly affects not only collative and emotion properties but also the sensory characteristic of the products. The result shows how information interacts with all levels of our perception of food. The third study elaborated on the effect of different types of tempe, cooking style, and the dish presentation to sensory, collative and emotion perception in a restaurant context. The result highlights that gastronomic style, and dish presentation plays an important part when we want to reintroduce the consumption of tempe from local varieties of beans. This study also shows that collative properties are the best predictors of hedonic response. A number of different psychological background parameters were collected, and their contribution to understanding the consumers was evaluated. Regarding the consumer psychographic background, there were significant effects of neophobia level and attitude towards traditional food on the sensory, the collative properties and the elicited emotions of dishes. This study highlights the importance of a variety of psychographic background to create a more thorough understanding of the consumers. To summarise, a full understanding of innovation in traditional foods is required to be successful in product development. It encompasses both the consumer psychographic background, the familiarity of the new product regarding the cooking style, the type of dish and also the raw material. Testing in real meal situations is also an important aspect to be able to predict the actual acceptance.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
ForlagDepartment of Food Science, Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen
StatusUdgivet - 2018

ID: 203330957