Food Consumption Patterns Part 2

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Consumers themselves explain why they most often purchase these “snack foods.” Sixty-eight
percent reported selecting specific snack foods for quality or health reasons (Figure 18). And
underscoring the apparent interest in nutrition, 97% said they would pay more for a snack food if
they knew that it had more nutritive value (Figure 19). But boutik (store) owners were more likely
to say the opposite, that consumers were most interested in price (Figure 20).
Figure 27: Primary Motivation
for Choosing Specific Snack
(N=632)
Figure 28: Would pay for cookies if they
knew that they had more vitamins than
other cookies that sold for less (N = 632)
quality
healthfulness
19%
49%
yes, 97%
price
familiarity
17%
12%
no, 3%
other
2%
Figure 29: Factors most important to customers when
purchasing food (N=33)
Customer service
Quality
3
3
Familiarity
7
Healthfulness
8
Price
12
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Number of respondents (n)
The low costs of these foods—typically 5 goud (10 US cents) for a pack of cookies, crackers or
cheese puffs—and the simple fact that popular class Haitians are economically stressed, might be
enough to convince most observers that price is indeed the factor that overwhelmingly determines
the incursion of these foods into the Haitian diet.