Ethnic Food Consumption: Experiencing Consumer Animosity and Racism on the Front

Authors: Rana Muhammad Ayyub, Muhammad Bilal, Tahir Mahmood

Abstract:

In multicultural societies, food preferences are taking dimensions in both minorities as well as majority ethnic groups. The food consumption behavior of minority ethnic groups has been studied adequately; however, this paper intends to study the consumer behavioral dimensions of majority ethnic groups regarding Halal foods (a minority-related food) in the USA. In this quantitative study, the online questionnaire survey (n=223) was collected through surveymonkey.com from non-Muslims living in various cities in the USA through random sampling. The theory of consumer animosity was a theoretical underpinning. The validated scales were adopted and adapted for all constructs. AMOS 24 was used to apply structural equation modelling (SEM) to the data. Among the majority of ethnic groups, it was found that consumer racism (β= -25) and consumer animosity (β= - 27) negatively affect intention to choose Halal foods, whereas food neophobia has a positive effect (β=36) on this intention. This study will prove instrumental in removing the blame of “Marketing Myopia” from marketing academics and will highlight the importance of prevalent market realities for one of the fastest growing ethnic food markets, i.e., Halal of the world. It has practical implications for Halal food marketers in particular and other ethnic food marketers in general.

Keywords: consumer racism, animosity, Halal foods, ethnic consumption, food neophobia