Fast Foods on the Customers Perspectives- Special Reference to the Customers in Urban, Semi Urban and Interior Locations in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Subsequent to the socio economic and political changes taken place in the country, a big fast food market has been created from the recent past. Like in the other markets it seems that particular segment of market attracted to the domestic level outlets regardless of the seneatry conditions. A study was carried out in three different socio economic environments, Rajagiriya, Negambo and Chilow, to understand the customer profile, recent to buy hygienically conditions and management strategies of the vendors. Using judgment sampling techniques, 15 domestic level outlets were selected from each location and all the vendors. 50 customers from each location were interview. Customer selection was base on cluster sampling and included school boys, youth, office staff and ordinary people those who prefer fast foods. Survey reveal that 37% of the customers are less than 20 yrs and 44% are youngers who fall within the range of 21-34. Only about 10%, belonged to 35 to 50 years of the customers, majority (61%) is male. Fourty three per cent of the customers are belonged to 4 member families and 35 % to 5 member families. Residential different of the customers was one of the interesting findings and showed that 42% of the customers from the urban and others are in order; 34% from sun urban and 24% from interior places. It was also revealed that majority of the customers were employed non executives (44%). Average income of these market segments reported to have more than Rs. 8,000 per month. Average daily expenditure of a customer on fast foods showed a variation within respect to the location; At Rajagiriya, 76 /=. At Negambo, Rs 68/= and Chilaw, Rs 48/=. Sixty eight percent of the customers responded that going after fast foods is because of the habit and as an easy way to fulfil the food need. Whereas 32% of the customers said that reasons are due to busyness’ easiness, cheapness and as a change. The most popular fast food item was found to be the fish bun in all the locations. When selecting the fast foods, the most influential factors were, taste (by 20%) and the condition of the outlet (by 16%). However, 51% of the customers indicated that selection is based on price, taste, appearance and the nature of the place. On the other hand, selection of the outlet was seemed to be mainly familiarity (50%) and good appearance (36%).Owners of these outlets, prefer to employ males (62%) than females and 80% of the outlets adopt both preparation and selling. It was also found that, these owners prefer experienced people to employ based on the recommendation of the known middlemen. In respect to the hygiene, only 58% of the outlets store and handle foods with the use of modern equipments and standards need to be improved