Behavioral and normative beliefs that influence Mexican consumers to purchase packaged food in urban supermarkets

Objective. To identify the behavioral and normative believes factors that might have major influence on the decision to buy packaged foods in urban Mexican families. Materials and methods. We performed a cross-sectional study in four urban cities of Mexico. Participants responded a self-administered questionnaire (n=3 340) outside of randomly selected supermarkets. A factor analysis was performed to identify what were the main behavioral and normative believes explaining consumers’ decision when buying packaged foods. Results. Three factors explained the behavioral beliefs: the quality assessment of packaged foods explained 61% of the variance, products that maintain weight explained 25%, and the emotional experience with foods explained 13%. Three factors explained the normative beliefs: expectations of chil­dren and partner explained 46% of the variance, expectations from the participants’ closest friends 23%, and expectation from other family members explained 14%. Conclusion. Behavioral and normative beliefs related to assessing the qual­ity of foods and meeting family expectations respectively are the main beliefs factors affecting consumers’ packaged food purchase decisions in urban consumers.