A Study on Influence of Food Bloggers on Consumer Preference

: Food bloggers have emerged as the new market influencers on social media in the restaurant industry in recent years. Their blogs are the go-to destinations for individuals to decide where to dine, what to order, and how worthy a restaurant is before visiting it. However, the influence of these culinary blogs on customers remains unknown. As a result, the purpose of this study is to investigate how Food Bloggers influence consumers' attitudes and behavior while choosing a restaurant. This study lays particular focus upon one such factor - “Food Bloggers” - which is widely utilized by the restaurants and marketers in recent days to promote their product or services. It has been undertaken to gain insight on the influence of food bloggers on consumer preference in choosing a restaurant to visit and consumers’ perception towards the food bloggers reviews and recommendations. The study further extends to analyse the customer expectations and attitude regarding the food bloggers reviews and recommendations.


INTRODUCTION
Food blogs have become a popular tool used by people to share their recipes and food experiences and they are considered a relevant source for food research.This paper aims at understanding the consumer perception towards reviews and recommendation of food bloggers and if they can influence the consumers' behaviour.The uniqueness of influencer, far from being a new trend, may be deemed as an embedded reality by now.Influencers can affect the consumer's decisions by specifying new trends or sponsoring products.Starting from social networks, they operate in various sectors.Food bloggers belongs to the influencers' category.They do not just provide recipes but, they also suggest and review restaurants or products to buy, give information about diet or food tendencies as well as be promoters of brands or create partnership with companies.The attachment that they build with their followers allows distinguishing their profiles from celebrities and makes them more reliable.They constitute a latest modern form of amateur professionalism that ideally goes with the food world in the online environment.Restaurants make use of the bloggers to highlight their cuisine, menu items, and their new services and to describe their supremacy or offers the restaurant has.They tend to use bloggers over and above other forms of advertising because of the influence they have.For the benefit of their readers, food bloggers write on their experiences eating or even the preparation of food.Depending on their area of interest, there are many different types of food bloggers.Some food bloggers who focus on cooking give their audience-friendly explanations of their recipes.By educating and entertaining readers, you can develop a strong following.One of the most engaged and a devoted • Email: editor@ijfmr.com

IJFMR23056219
Volume 5, Issue 5, September-October 2023 2 audience of any bloggers comes from all over the world.The other kind of food bloggers are adventurers who try out new foods and cuisines and share their experiences with their audience along with their ratings.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Sariya Thapsutham (2018) had conducted in-depth interviews with food enthusiasts, restaurant marketers, and successful online food bloggers, this study aims to identify the variables that contributed to the growth of online food bloggers in Thailand.The findings indicate that all demographic groups place a high value on appearance and lifestyle fit when choosing a food product.
Holleschovsky (2015) gathered insightful data on consumer behavior are revealed by the research.Consumer reviews from reliable and well-designed platforms serve as the foundation for consumer decisions.Consumer views are crucially affected by the author of the review's visible identity and the review's accurate description in qualitative texts in order to establish a trustworthy platform.Consumers believe that customer reviews contribute to more market openness and risk reduction during the decision-making process.
Giada Mainolfi, Vittoria Marino, Riccardo Resciniti (2022) examined how readers' involvement is impacted by perceived enjoyment, blogger credibility, and homophile.The study also looks into the influence that participation in blogs has on intentions to heed bloggers' advice.The study also looks at factors that influence engagement, such as perceived enjoyment, credibility, and homophiles, which have not previously been thoroughly studied in relation to food blogs.For Italian and American followers, blogger trustworthiness does not appear to have a substantial impact on blog engagement.

OBJECTIVES:
• To identify the impact of food blogger's on consumer attitude.
• To understand consumer perception towards reviews and recommendation of food blogging for choice of restaurant.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:
The research design obtained to do this project on "A study on influence of food blogger's on consumer preference" is analytical.The study employs the convenient sampling technique, in which sampling units are chosen based on the researcher's convenience.The sample size has been set at 150.The data required for the research has been obtained from primary and secondary data.This study has adopted statistical methods like chi square test and correlation with the help of statistical tools like SPSS software, excel sheets and Google forms.

TOOLS APPLIED FOR THE STUDY:
Correlation: Correlation is a statistical measure that describes the relationship between two variables.Correlation measures the degree to which two variables are linearly related to each other.Chi-square: Chi-square is a statistical test used to determine whether there is a significant association between two categorical variables.• Email: editor@ijfmr.comIJFMR23056219 Volume 5, Issue 5, September-October 2023 3

ANALYSIS & INTERPRETATION I CHI SQUARE TEST
There may be a relationship between the age of consumers and their trust towards food bloggers' reviews and recommendations.However, the relationship between age and trust towards food bloggers' recommendations is not absolute and may vary depending on the individual.

Hypothesis
H0: There is no statistically significant relationship between the age of the consumers and trust towards the food bloggers reviews and recommendation.H1: There is statistically significant relationship between the age of the consumers and trust towards the food bloggers reviews and recommendation.

Results:
Chi 191 and the significant value, p is 0.035 which is less than 0.05, rejecting the null hypothesis at 5% level of significance.Therefore, it is concluded that there is statistically significant relationship between the age of the consumers and trust towards the food bloggers' reviews and recommendations.

II PEARSON CORRELATION
Correlation in statistics refers to the degree to which two variables are linked or associated with one another.It quantifies the strength and direction of a linear relationship between two quantitative variables.

-Square Tests
The results of the Chi-Square Tests from Table shows that the Pearson Chi Square value, χ 2 is 22.