Consumer Awareness and Preference towards Instant Food Products in Tirupur City

: The study aims to know the awareness level and consumer preference among Instant food product users in Tirupur city. Using convenient sampling method 170 Instant food product users were identified to collect primary data through issuing questionnaire. The secondary data collected from Journals, Magazines, online sources, etc., tools like simple percentage, chi-square, ANOVA were used to analyze the collected primary data. Findings conclude that majority of the respondents belong to below 25 years, unmarried, female having college level education and working as professionals, having 4-6 members with nuclear type of family are aware about Instant food products and accept as worth spending for instant food products. Advertisement and family members influence to buy instant food products. Noodles variety is one of the main instant food products which the respondents are mostly aware of. Respondents mostly check the expiry and manufacturing date before purchasing the instant food products. Breakfast varieties are mostly preferred next to it beverages, noodles and health mixes are preferred and agree that consuming of instant food products had changed their food habits.


INTRODUCTION
In India, instant food products now have a genuine place on the shelves of shops and hyper markets.New, high-quality instant packaged foods have altered peoples' lifestyles and encouraged more Indian businesses to enter into the market with a variety of instant food items.Instant foods conserve time and resources.Parents may send their kids to school earlier, go to work and spend more time for other activities, due to their greater levels of education, better work prospects and favorable exposure environments, find less time to cook food.Increasing level of working women, either led to both parents not finding time to take care of household activities which paves way for home automation and don't have time and feel so tired to cook food at home.Instant food products help to cook food with less time and effort.
Due to western influence, people's eating habits have changed in India.Majority of them favored cooking at home or buying food from hotels.The market offers a wide range of rapid meal items.Instant foods are becoming common place in daily life.The instant foods are most popular in the modern world.It is known as the food revolution.The market for instant food is being driven by urban India's changing lifestyles and an increase in nuclear families with two incomes.The instant packaged foods have taken up a sizable amount of shelf space in India's retail establishments in the packaged food market.Through instant meal products, food makers have provided good food options that were inconceivable to forefathers.Instant meal mixes provide a variety of foods that are ideal for households, are quick and simple to use and are particularly user-friendly for women by reducing the laborious task of obtaining numerous items, cleaning and cooking which saves time and effort.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
This study proposed to identify the consumer awareness on instant food products.Now a day's life style of the people is changing like fast train and also food industries try to satisfy the consumers' needs in the foods lifestyle.People focus on lower time activity to make them free.So, study is mainly conducted to analyze the awareness level on instant food products among the Instant food product users in Tirupur city.

OBJECTIVES
The objectives of the study are: • To study the demographic factors and know the source of awareness which influences buying of Instant food products.• To identify the awareness level about the Instant food products.
• To analyze the Instant food product users preferences.• To know whether the consumption of instant food products have changed their food habits.

LITERATURE REVIEW
• Devapriya, Beulah Vijayarani (2020) made an attempt to analyze the existing awareness and buying behavior of convenience food products by individual households and to predict the demand for Instant Food Products of Coimbatore city.Adopted convenience sampling method to find 120 consumers in Coimbatore city.Percentage Analysis and Chi-square test being adopted to analyze the collected data.
From the analysis, it was found that age group below 25 years married female consumers have high awareness on Instant food products and door delivery facilities is one of the factors which influences consumers to purchase convenience foods.Sakthi masala and Aachi brand is popular and having more awareness among the people.Manufacturers must focus on attracting existing buying and invite new customers to achieve better results.• Garima Babe and Madhu Chauhan (2019) analyzed urban woman's awareness level and buying behavior on selected packaged food of Ready to eat in Kota city.For this study 240 respondents were chosen, divided into 120 working and 120 non-working women using random and convenience sampling method.Primary data was collected from interview method.The study concluded that working women have more awareness about packed products than the non-working women.Label of packed foods helps to identify the particular products among other products in markets.Working women had a better buying decision and knowledge regarding foods.• Gisha and Ramya (2016) identified the awareness, most familiar source and brand preference among the women of instant food in Palakkad district.Adopted convenience sampling method to find 205 consumers to collected primary data through questionnaire.SPSS software used to analyze the collected data.The study revealed that female consumers had a complete awareness about instant foods available in market.Highly preferred brand is Eastern brand and TV advertisement source is one of the better sources for providing information to attract the consumers.• Shopiya (2018) had attempted to find awareness, preference and reason for purchasing instant food.
The primary data collected from 100 consumers and analyzed with simple percentage and chi-square.
The study concluded that Male respondents had high awareness than women.Respondents opinioned that Rs.300 can be been spent per month for instant foods.Maggi noodles is the highly preferred brand.Taste and timesaving are the main reasons for purchasing instant foods.• Shubhendu ShekherShukla et al., (2020) found the awareness and preference level about branded instant noodles and brands available in noodles in Uttar Pradesh.The primary goal of this study is to determine how consumers perceive instant noodles, consumption patterns and brand preferences in the rural areas close to the district of Lucknow.The primary data was collected through mail interview survey among 200 consumers using convenience sampling method under Districts of Uttar Pradesh.Finally, they found that brand loyalty helps people to prefer particular brand and need more awareness on information about new brands, instant noodle add up to showcase share is high but the thing is they got to make more aware within the rural region individuals through the different promotion tools to cover up all the rural region.Taste is main factor to prefer the particular brands.Most preferred brand is MAGGI and YIPEE noodles.Prefer to purchase medium size pack to match their family size.➢ H01: There is no significant relationship between level of preference with age, gender, occupation, number of family members and monthly family income.➢ H02: There is no significant relationship between level of awareness about instant food products with age, gender, educational qualification, occupation, type of family and monthly family income.➢ H03: There is no significant relationship between changes in food habits with age, gender, occupation, type of family and monthly family income.➢ H04: There is no associate relationship between frequency of usage with type of family and occupation.

LIMITATIONS OF STUDY
The study only took 170 respondents from Tirupur city as a sample.The opinion of the respondents is based for the result and it is reliable to Tirupur city only.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
The 170 responses received from the instant food users in Tirupur city has been analyzed using SPSS package and the results with its discussions are presented below:  1 represent that 53.5% of the respondents are Up to 25 years of age followed by 31.2% of the respondents are between 26 -40 years.54.1% of the respondents are female and 45.9% of the respondents are male.The majority 60.5% 0f the respondents are unmarried followed by 39.5 % are married.Mostly 44.1% of the respondents having college level educational qualification and 36.5% having professional level qualification.45.9% of the respondents are professionals followed by 30% are students.The majority 61.3% of the respondents belong to nuclear family and 38.7%of the respondents belong to Joint family.62.4 % of the respondents having 4 -6 members in their family, 18.8 % having both below 4 members and above 6 members in the family.37.1% of the respondents having monthly family income between Rs.25,001-Rs.50,000 per month.
Table2  3 represent that 22.9% of the respondents use Instant foods attracted by advertisement, 21.2% of the respondents are recommended by their Family members, 20.6% of the respondents are recommended by social media, 15.9% of the respondents use Instant foods thinking by self, 12.4% of the respondents by Friends, 4.7% of the respondents by others and 2.4% of the respondents are recommended by their relatives.Advertisement and Family members are found to be the sources which play a major role in purchasing and using the instant food products.4 shows that 77.6% of the respondents accept that the amount spend for Instant food is worth and 22.4% of the respondents feel that the amount is not worth spending.7 show that 38.2% of the respondents identify the freshness of the instant foods by its expiry date of pack, 21.8% of the respondents identify the freshness by the ingredients used in products, and 20% of the respondents identify through taste and aroma of the pack and attractiveness of the package.
Table 8  For codification highly aware being coded as 5, aware as 4, neutral as 3, not aware as 2 and highly not aware taken as 1.For better analysis and interpretation regarding the mean ranks, it is taken as 4.21 to 5 as highly aware, 3.41 to 4.2 as aware, 2.61 to 3.4 as neutral, 1.81 to 2.6 as not aware and 1 to 1.8 as highly not aware.With this assumption the results are concluded as instant food varieties viz., noodles, desserts, starters, health mix, beverage, breakfast, curry mix, meal mixes fall in the range between 3.41 to 4.2 confirming that the respondents are aware and soup fall in the range 2.61 to 3.4 which states the awareness level of the respondents as neutral.Result of table 10 conform that 60.6% of the respondents always check the information on the label before purchasing the instant food products, 22.9% of the respondents sometimes check the information given on the label before purchasing and 16.5% of the respondents rarely check the information given on the label before purchasing.It can be concluded that majority of the respondents check the information given on the label of instant food products before purchasing it.11 reveals the result connected to the factors checked which are given as label information on Instant Food Product package.Majority 40.6% of the respondents agree about checking Price of the product, 39.4% of the respondents check about the ingredients used in the product, 42.9% of the respondents say neutral about checking details of calories present in product, 38.8% of the respondents agree that they check whether it is convenient to use or not, 36.5% of the respondents agree on checking quality of food package, 34.7% of the respondents agree checking about the offers or discounts available for a particular product, 35.3% of the respondents agree and also say as neutral for checking trademark of the products, 43.5% of the respondents agree for checking brand name of the products, 35.9 % of the respondents agree as they check the Manufacturing date and 37.1% of the respondents highly agree as they check the expiry date of the products before purchasing.Codification for highly agree are coded as 5, agree as 4, neutral as 3, not agree as 2, highly not agree as 1.For improvement in analysis and interpretation regarding mean ranks, it is taken as 4.5 to 5 as highly agree, 3.60 to 4.5 as agree, 3.20 to 3.60 as neutral, 2.1 to 3.20 as not agree, 1 to 2.1 as highly not agree.With this assumption the results are concluded as checking of label viz., Expiry date, Manufacturing date, Price, Ingredients, Brand name, Packaging food Quality fall in the range between 3.60 to 4.5 conforming that the respondents agree as they check the label information and Convenient usage, Trade mark, Offers and Discounts, Calories fall in range 3.20 to 3.60 hence, the responses level is categorized as neutral.
Table 12   With knowledge for coding highly prefer being coded as 5, prefer as 4, neutral as 3, not prefer as 2, highly not prefer as 1.For analysis and interpretation regarding the mean rank, it taken as 4.2 to 5 as highly prefer, 3.7 to 4.21 as prefer, 3.4 to 3.71 as neutral, 2.8 to 3.4 as not prefer and 1.0 to 2.81 as highly not prefer.With this mean score it can be concluded as Breakfast, Beverage, Noodles, Health mix and Desserts fall in the range between 3.7 to 4.21 and Curry mix, Soup, Starters and Meal mix fall in the range between 3.4 to 3.71 which denotes respondents prefer the instant food varieties as neutral.13 show that 80.6% of the respondents accept that their food habits have changed and 19.4% of the respondents say that their food habits have not changed.Majority of the respondents accept that there is a change noticed in their food habits after eating Instant foods.

HYPOTHESES TESTING WITH ANOVA
ANOVA is used to analyse the statistical difference between two or more group's categories by testing mean difference using variance.The first three hypotheses are tested using ANOVA.H01: There is no significant relationship between level of preference with age, gender, occupation, number of family members and monthly family income.14 shows the output of the ANOVA.The significant value for age is 0.885, gender is 0.814, occupation is 0.163 and monthly family income is 0.210 which are above 0.05, which confirms that there is no significant difference between age, gender, occupation and monthly family income with the level of preference of instant food products and hence, the null hypothesis [H01] is accepted.The significant value for number of family members are 0.035 which is below 0.05 confirms that there is a significant difference between numbers of family members with the level of preferring instant food products and hence, the null hypothesis [H01] is rejected.

H02:
There is no significant relationship between level of awareness about instant food products with age, gender, educational qualification, occupation, type of family and monthly family income.15 shows the output of the ANOVA.The significant value for age is 0.133, educational qualification is .455,occupation is 0.549, type of family is 0.271 and monthly family income is 0.778 which are above 0.05 confirms there is no significant difference between age, educational qualification, occupation, type of family and monthly family income with level of awareness about instant food products and hence, the null hypothesis [H02] is accepted.The significant value for gender found as 0.001 which is below 0.01 hence, confirms that there is a significant difference between genders with the level of awareness about the instant food products and hence, the null hypothesis [H02] is rejected.

H03:
There is no significant relationship between changes in food habits with age, gender, occupation, type of family and monthly family income.16 shows the output of the ANOVA.The significant value for type of family is 0.748 and monthly family income is 0.505 which are above 0.05 confirms there is no significant difference between type of family and monthly family income with changes in food habits after using instant food products and hence, the null hypothesis [H03] is accepted.The significant value age is 0.000, gender is .046and occupation is 0.005 which are below 0.05 confirms there is a significant difference between age, gender and occupation with the changes in food habits after using instant food products and hence, the null hypothesis [H03] is rejected.

HYPOTHESIS TESTING WITH CHI-SQUARE
Chi-square Test is used to compare expected result and observed result and find the relationship between the variables.H04: There is no associate relationship between frequency of usage with type of family and occupation.17 it is clear that the significant value for type of family is .348and occupation is .590which are found more than the significant value at 5% level, hence, the null hypothesis [H04] is accepted and there is no associate relationship between frequency of usage of instant food products with type of family and occupation of the respondents.

MAJOR FINDINGS
• 53.5% of the respondents belong to the age group Up to 25 years.
• 54.1% of the respondents are female.
• The majority 60.6% of the respondents are unmarried.
• 44.1% of the respondents having college level educational qualification.
• 45.9% of the respondents are professionals.
• The majority 61.2% of the respondents belong to nuclear type of family.
• The majority 62.4 % of the respondents having 4 -6 members in their family.
• 55.9% of the respondents aware about the features of Instant food products.
• 22.9% of the respondents use Instant foods attracted by advertisement.
• 77.6% of the respondents accepted that the amount spent for Instant food is worth.
• 53.5% of the respondents know that Instant foods are available in online for sale.
• 71.8 % of the respondents had used trial pack of the Instant foods.
• 38.2% of the respondents identify the freshness of instant foods through its expiry date.
• Majority of the respondents are aware about Instant food product varieties and Noodles is the variety which is ranked first with mean value of 3.92.• 76.5% of the respondents purchase Instant foods frequently.
• 60.6% of the respondents always check the information given in the label before purchasing the instant food products.• Majority of the respondents buy the instant food after checking the label information and they mainly check the Expiry date (3.94) and manufacturing date (3.93) before purchasing the instant food products.• Majority of the respondents prefer instant food varieties and Breakfast varieties are ranked first with the mean value of 3.92 continuing it the mean values for beverage, noodles, health mix and desserts are also preferred by the respondents.It is also found that majority of the respondents 45.3% prefer the ready health mixes, 41.2% prefer starters, 40% prefer soup and 40% prefer beverages.• 80.6% of the respondents accept the habitual change in their food habits after using instant foods.
• It is confirmed that there is no significant relationship between levels of preference with age, gender, occupation and monthly family income whereas there is a significant relationship between levels of preference with number of family members.• It is confirmed that there is no significant relationship between level of awareness about instant food products with age, educational qualification, occupation, type of family and monthly family income whereas there is a significant relationship between the levels of awareness about instant food products with gender.• It is confirmed that there is a significant relationship between changes in food habits with age, gender and occupation whereas there is no significant relationship between changes in food habits with type of family and monthly family income.
• It is confirmed that there is no associate relationship between frequency of usage with type of family and occupation.

CONCLUSION
Now-a-days, instant meal items are now legitimately present on household cabinets.People's dual roles may cause them to buy instant meal products instead of cooking at home.From results and discussions, it is concluded with the majority of the responses recorded as that up to 25 years, unmarried male having college level educational, working as professionals, having 4-6 members with nuclear family type and are aware about Instant food product features.Accepting that the amount spending is worth and known that it is also available in online with trial pack too.The well known instant food product is identified as Noodles.Instant food product label information is mostly checked specifically Expiry date is highly checked before purchasing and Breakfast varieties are mostly preferred.The respondents agree that there is a change in their food habits after using instant food products.Advertisement and family members are the main sources which lead them to prefer instant food.Numbers of family members have a dependency in preference level, Gender play a considerable role with level of awareness, as a consumer instant food products a change in the food habits are found to be interconnected with the age, gender and occupation of the respondents and type of family and occupation have not association with the frequency of usage of instant food products.Instant food being a convenient and comfortable food in this faster world, it is necessarily expected to be healthy.A social health consciousness among the producers and consumers focusing towards healthy eat and keeping them fit are found to be the need of the hour.
Based on the mean values, Expiry date with highest mean value 3.94 and rank as first, next mean value 3.93 for Manufacturing date, ranked as second, the mean value for price is 3.90 are ranked as a third.Following mean values for Ingredients (3.65), Brand name (3.58), Packaging food quality (3.57), Convenient usage (3.56), Trademark (3.48), Offers and Discounts (3.48) and Calories (3.33).
varieties.The preference level based on the mean values, it is clear that Breakfast varieties are ranked first with highest mean score 3.92, Beverage as second with 3.82 mean score and Noodles as third rank with 3.75 mean score.Following it the mean score for Health Mix (3.71), Desserts (3.70), Curry Mix (3.65), Soup (3.58), Starters (3.54) and Meal Mix (3.53).

Table 2 ,
represents that 55.9% of the respondents are aware about the features of the Instant food products and 44.1% of the respondents are not aware about the features of Instant food products.The result makes it clear that majority of the respondents are aware about the features of the Instant food products.Table3

Table 5 : Awareness on Online Availability Available in Online Frequency Percent
Source: Primary Data Computed Using SPSS Table5reveals that 53.5% of the respondents know that Instant foods are available in online for sale and 46.5% of the respondents are not aware that the Instant foods products are available in online for sale.

Table 6 : Trial Pack Usage Trial Pack Usage Frequency Percent
Source: Primary Data Computed Using SPSS Table6result shows that 71.8% of the respondents had used trial pack of the Instant foods and 28.2% of the respondents had not used trial pack of the Instant foods.

: Awareness level of Instant food Product Varieties
Computed from primary data using SPSS Table8show the results related to the awareness level towards the variety of instant food products, Majority 47.1% of the respondents are aware about Breakfast varieties, 40.6% of the respondents are aware about Health Mixes, 40.0% of the respondents are aware about curry mixes, 40.0% of the respondents are aware about Starters, 33.5% of the respondents are aware about Meal mixes, 58.2% of the respondents are aware about Noodles, 41.2% of the respondents are aware about Soup varieties, 42.4% of the respondents are aware about beverage foods and 37.1% of the respondents are aware about desserts.The awareness level based on the mean values it is clear that Noodles with highest mean value of 3.92 ranks as first, next to it the mean value 3.71 for desserts are ranked second, the mean value 3.68 for

Table 9 : Usage Frequency Used Frequency Percent
Source: Primary Data Computed Using SPSS Table9shows the result that 76.5% of the respondents use Instant foods frequently and 23.5% of respondents use Instant food rarely.

Table 12
shows the prefer ence towards variety of Instant food.Majority of 38.8% of the respondents prefers Breakfast varieties, 45.3% of the respondents prefer Health Mix, 38.8% of the respondents prefer Curry Mix varieties, 41.2% of the respondents prefer Starter varieties, 30.6% of the respondents prefer Meal Mix varieties, 35.9% of the respondents prefer Noodles varieties, 40.0% of the respondents prefer Soup varieties, 40.0% of the respondents prefer Beverage varieties and 32.4% of the respondents prefer and highly prefer Dessert