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Profile of food truck consumers and their opinion about food safety

Gabriela Mazzon Valente (Department of Nutrition, Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, Brazil)
Lize Stangarlin-Fiori (Graduate Program in Food and Nutrition, Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, Brazil)
Lais de Oliveira Seiscentos (UniBrasil, Curitiba, Brazil)
Viviane Valle de Souza (Positivo University, Curitiba, Brazil)
Caroline Opolski Medeiros (Department of Nutrition, Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, Brazil)

Nutrition & Food Science

ISSN: 0034-6659

Article publication date: 6 September 2019

Issue publication date: 22 April 2020

606

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to evaluate the profile of food truck consumers at gourmet events, identifying their food preferences and opinions about the provision of safe food by this segment.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 750 food truck customers in the city of Curitiba, Brazil, participated in the study. The survey investigated the socio-economic profile of the consumers, the frequency of their food consumption, the criteria for their choice of food trucks, their mean spending value, the method of payment used and the opinion of consumers about food cost and food truck hygiene conditions.

Findings

Most consumers were female (62.7 per cent), students (31.3 per cent) and with an average age of 29 ± 10 years. Many customers preferred the consumption of salty foods (84.0 per cent), mainly burgers and kabobs. The consumers reported spending between $6.32 and $9.03 during the events, and men spent more money than women (p = 0.000). Both thought that good conditions of hygiene (81.9 per cent), food presentation (46.9 per cent) and service (48.0 per cent) were more important than the product price (19.3 per cent). Consumers thought that the food trucks had an adequate structure (73.5 per cent) and the food handlers (74.4 per cent) had good conditions of hygiene, ensuring the safety of the food sold.

Research limitations/implications

On account of the convenience sampling in an urban environment, the data cannot be generalized to the entire population of the municipality and to other regions.

Originality/value

There are few studies with food trucks consumers in Brazil, to this writing the largest sample ever used for this type of research in this country. The results were designed to be used by professionals working in the area.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Academic Publishing Advisory Center (Centro de Assessoria de Publicação Acadêmica, CAPAwww.capa.ufpr.br) of the Federal University of Paraná for assistance with English language editing.

Citation

Valente, G.M., Stangarlin-Fiori, L., Seiscentos, L.d.O., de Souza, V.V. and Opolski Medeiros, C. (2020), "Profile of food truck consumers and their opinion about food safety", Nutrition & Food Science, Vol. 50 No. 3, pp. 481-495. https://doi.org/10.1108/NFS-05-2019-0162

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

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