Assessing consumers' adoption of active and intelligent packaging

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to identify the purchase behavior with regard to innovative food packaging techniques and sociodemographic properties of consumers in Turkey (the crossroads of Europe and Asia). Design/methodology/approach - The survey was conducted with 365 people (around 50 persons for each region) who live in the different regions to represent the whole population of Turkey as good as possible. Questionnaire methodology was used to achieve the research objectives. Multiple-choice test which consists of 24 questions (Table I) were selected in order to keep the questionnaire at a reasonable length. Questionnaires were distributed to the respondents in small groups for effective communication. Multiple correspondence, decision tree and prospect profiles statistic procedures were used to identify the purchase behavior. Findings - In the study, some consumers worried that innovative packages might mislead them and therefore sales should be handled under trusted brands. Majority of consumers were willing to use innovative food packages to prevent the microbial spoilage. Consumers indicated that they do not want to see sachets in active food packages due to the probability of mistaken. Consumers who chose the price as a first thing to get their attention in food packaging, would accept the increase in price lesser than 10 percent after seeing the positive impacts of innovative packaging. Most of the consumers' (74.79 percent) expectation from innovative packaging was the visual ability to observe the history and freshness of foods inside the packaging. Participants indicated that education through commercials (40.55 percent) would be the most effective way in order to increase the overall acceptability for innovative packaging. Research limitations/implications - The limitation of this study was that, these questionnaires were applied only to Turkish consumers and findings might not be applicable to other countries. Practical implications - Better understanding of consumer adoption of innovative packages can help to minimize rejection of innovative technologies. Knowledge of consumer behaviors toward active and intelligent packaging can contribute to developing better industry strategies. Originality/value - This paper gives the detailed information about purchasing behavior of Turkish consumers' regarding innovative packaging techniques.