Religious heterogeneity of food consumers: The impact of global markets upon methods of production

The production and distribution of food is a topic of perennial interest. Specific concern arises over the provision of foods that have been prepared in accordance with religious requirements because they place additional demands and constraints upon methods of food production and distribution.

This paper explores the attitude of consumers toward the method of production of food that has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of their own and other faiths. Consumer’s gender, age, education level and the degree of respondent religiosity are all found to be influential. Furthermore, the assumption that such foods are acceptable to non-religious people is flawed.

This study advances our understanding of the role of religiosity upon consumer behavior. It makes a unique investigation of attitudes toward food that has been prepared in accordance with religious requirements and finds that consumer religion is an important demographic but that the degree of religiosity and other attitudes, such as those toward animal husbandry, are also important factors that need to be taken into account during production and retailing.

Such polydoxicity has implications for marketing systems concerned with the production and consumption of religiously prepared foodstuff. This research concludes that religious consumers are a highly heterogeneous group. While inter-faith differences may be obvious and expected, intra-faith differences also exist.