The Impact of the Economic Crisis on Greek Consumer Behaviour towards Food Consumption

This study was focused on investigating the factors that affect consumers and their shopping attitudes in the turbulent economic period which characterizes the recent years. In particular, the main aim of this study was to investigate and contribute towards understanding consumer behavior and to explore the factors that affect consumers during their food shopping in adverse economic conditions. To address our research objective, the study is focused on identifying consumers’ current spending habits and investigating consumers’ food purchasing behavior. Data were obtained from an intercept survey conducted in a random selected sample consisting of 553 consumers between January and May 2016 in the Prefecture of Thessaloniki. In the data which were collected, initially, reliability and validation testing was performed with Factor Analysis (EFA) followed by a second checking of validity with Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) using the statistical program LISREL 8.80. The results were used to formulate a conceptual model in order to investigate consumers’ behavior towards food. The empirical examination of this theoretical model was carried out by forming a model of structural equations. Results demonstrate that “objective resources” have been found to influence behavior both indirectly through the “attitudes” towards diet, but also directly. Income was found to affect the model directly and significantly. Also, consumption of food is affected by the number of adults in the household. At the same time, there is a rejection of the “quality” factor due to its higher price.