A CRITIQUE SURVEY ON PERSPECTIVE OF WOMEN EN ROUTE READY-TO-EAT FOOD PRODUCTS, HYDERABAD, INDIA

Abstract

In India, most of the people take their food still at home. But with time, convenience food usage is expanding
due to growth in urbanization, breaking up of the conventional joint family system, probing for quality, lack of time,
increasing number of working women, increase in per capita income, changing lifestyles and increasing level of luxury in
the middle-income group had brought about the changes in food habits. The prevailing studies on this subject are limited
needing further exploration into the matter. The study aimed to check the preference of women towards the ready-to-eat
food, to identify the factors influencing the acquisition of ready-to-eat food, to check the extent of awareness of women
towards ready-to-eat food products and also to spot most preferred time for ready-to-eat food in Hyderabad. This study is
empirically supported on a sample of respondents, selected by adopting a probability sampling method. The data are
analyzed using Chi-square, ANOVA, Explanatory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Garret Ranking technique using Ms Excel
and SPSS. The result shows that there is no association between age, qualification and preference towards the ready-toeat food but, there is an association between occupation, marital status, and nature of family, income and preference of
ready-to-eat food. This study identified the seven factors which influence the preference of the ready-to-eat food by
women. It also reveals that most of the women prefer ready-to-eat food in the morning and evening times. It is hoped that
the findings of this empirical study, supported a reliable sample and valid statistical analysis would have facilitated
adding to the existing contributions on the subject.