Developing an Attitude Scale for Korean Style Flavors

The consumer acceptance of food is not only affected by the sensory characteristics of food but also by the non-food factors, including food experience, consumption frequency, and food attitudes. Therefore, food attitude scales such as the food neophobic scale, VARSEEK scale, Dutch restrained eating scale, health taste attitude scale, etc. have been developed and effectively used to predict consumer liking and behaviors. Since the globalization of Korean food is currently one of the hottest topics in the Korean food industry, the aim of this study was to identify the tastes and flavors that may represent Korean cuisine. Additionally, an attitudinal scale for Korean taste and flavors was developed, which can then be utilized to predict a consumer's liking of Korean food. In the first stage of the experiment, the representative taste and flavors of Korean cuisine was surveyed by a Korean culinary expert group (n=23) and general consumers (n=62). As a result of these surveys, 4 types of flavors, hot pepper flavor, 'goso' flavor, garlic flavor, and fermented flavor were shown to be the most representative flavors of Korean cuisine. Based on these results, the second stage of the experiment was carried out to develop an attitudinal scale for Korean style flavors. Eleven to 17 questionnaires were developed for each of the 4 types of flavors. The survey consisted of a total of 53 questionnaires and 154 female consumers and 158 male consumers participated in the survey. The data was analyzed by factor analysis. For each type of flavor, the final attitudinal questionnaires were selected based on the following criteria: 1. high absolute factor loading value, 2. carrying clear meaning of the corresponding flavor attitude, and 3. delivering the meaning sufficiently when translated into other language. The final Korean style flavor attitude scale consisted of 7 hot pepper flavor, 6 'goso' flavor, 6 garlic flavor, and 7 fermented flavor questionnaires. In the next step of this study, experiments will be carried out to validate the Korean style flavor attitude scale.

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