Factors influencing the consumer purchasing decision of potato-based products in Raipur district of Chhattisgarh

Introduction

Food consumption habits in Indian are changing remarkably. Changing lifestyle, rapid urbanization, increasing income, women participation in workforce has shaped transformation in such dietary (Thapa and Thapa., 2019 and Rana et al., 2014) [7,6] . This change in demography of population has led to change in consumer choices and buying pattern. Today's modern food consumption pattern seeks for convenient, time saving, quality and price worthy food. This turn in food pattern has led to increase in demand of processed and instant foods. The sector recorded an average growth rate of nearly 6.55% as compared with 4.43% in agriculture and allied sector (Ministry of Food Processing Industry, 2025) [1] . The growth of food processing sector has an important role in Indian economy with its contribution to GDP with its employment generation and investment as the sector raises farmer incomes and enhances Indian and export market for value-added agricultural produce. Potato-based products have gained considerable demand, among processed foods, particularly in the snack products (Marwaha et al. 2010) [5] . India's total potato production is about 58.57 million tonnes in year 2024-2025 (Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare) and it ranks second in terms of consumption with per capita consumption of 27.9 kg (FAOSTAT, 2023) [2] . Despite this significant potato production, India processes only 7% of its production, indicating significant scope for value addition and expansion of the potato processing industry (Hu et al., 2025) [4] . These developments in the processed potato sector are not limited to major metropolitan cities but are also seen in emerging urban centres. Raipur being a tier II city, witnessed changes in food consumption patterns associated with urbanization, changing lifestyles and increasing demand for convenient and ready to eat foods. Therefore, analysing of factors influencing the consumption of potato-based products is important for understanding the change in consumer preferences. Product quality, brand loyalty, price sensitivity showed significant effect towards purchase intention. Since tier II city consumers were budget-conscious yet willing to pay for premium quality as income rises (Gupta and Priti, 2025) [3] , a tier II city like Raipur presents similar scenario to study these dynamics. Factors such as marketing and habitual influence, brand and freshness orientation, sensory appeal, price sensitivity, flavour and economic status, social influence affects consumer preferences (Viradiya and Jadeja, 2026) [8] . This study contributes to understanding the demand side of potato value chain. Understanding consumer purchase behaviour improves market linkages from processors and retailers to potato growers.

Objective

Materials and Methods

The study was undertaken in Raipur city, Chhattisgarh. The data for the present study was obtained from 90 consumers of Raipur district. The data was collected using multistage sampling technique from selected major urban localities of Raipur including Jora, Pandri, Telibanda, Mova, Sarona, Tatibandh, Bhatagaon, Shankar Nagar and Devendra Nagar, based on higher retail outlet concentration and consumer accessibility. The required data was collected by prestructured schedule through personal interview method. The data collection was majorly done by primary data with the support of secondary data. The socio-economic profile of consumers and the product and brand portfolio were analysed using percentage analysis. Factor analysis was used to analyse the factors influencing purchase of potato-based products using principal component analysis with varimax rotation on 16 variables to extract the variables with Kaiser-Meyer Olkin (KMO) and Bartlette's test of sphericity to measure sampling adequacy and suitability of data.

Results and Discussion

The socio-economic profile of the selected consumers is presented in Table 1. About half of the consumers (48.89%) belonged to the 21-30-year age group, and majority of the respondents were male (58.89%). Most of the respondents were well educated, 36.67% were graduates and 30.00% were postgraduates and above and none of the respondents were illiterate. A large portion of respondents (66.67%) were students and 43.33 per cent of consumers belonged to highest monthly family income group of Rs. 50,000. Most respondents were non-vegetarian (73.33%), belonged to nuclear families (67.78%) and had small family size of 5 members (41.11%).

Factors influencing purchase of potato-based products in Raipur

Before applying factor analysis, it is desirable to check the assumptions of factor analysis. The first assumption is sampling adequacy for factor analysis while, the second assumption existence of correlation between variables. 0.5 indicated that the sample was adequate to apply factor analysis. Bartlett's test Chi-square was found to be 368.760 with significance value < 0.001, confirming that variables were significantly correlated. Thus, both assumptions required for the factor analysis were satisfied. Communalities represent the amount of variance in each variable that is explained by the extracted factors. The communality values of all the variables were more than the threshold value of 0.50, indicating that the extracted factors adequately explained the variance of each variable. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with Varimax rotation was used to extract the factors with Kaiser criterion as the basis to determine the factors. The Kaiser criterion (eigenvalue >1) was adopted to determine the number of factors. The eigenvalues for initial 6 factors extracted were found to be 3.390, 2.264, 1.506, 1.436, 1.092 and 1.046 respectively. The rotated factor solution extracted six factors, which together explained 67.093 of the total variance (Table 5).

Conclusion

The above study mainly aimed to understand factor influencing the purchase of the potato-based products. The study confirmed that there was a wide range of products available in the Raipur district of Chhattisgarh from international brands to local brands with major consumer from age group of 21-30 year. Most of the consumers found to be students and were graduates and belonged to non vegetarian category. Lay's was the most popular brand among almost all the consumers. Findings of the study indicated that consumers choices to purchase the potatobased products was influenced by numbers of factors including economic factors, brand consciousness and marketing, product quality and consumption behaviour, taste appeal and display, accessibility and convenience. Product quality was found to be the most important factor to influence consumer's purchase, followed by the availability and convenience of the products. As product quality found to be the most important drivers of consumptions, manufacturer should give more emphasis quality assurance by developing healthy variants and labelling quality related attributes on the packaging. Further study could increase the sample size and geographical coverage which will be helpful to identify the consumer behaviour across different regions. Further study could increase the sample size and geographical coverage which will be helpful to identify the consumer behaviour across different regions.

Acknowledgement

AcknowledgementI sincerely express my gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Hamsa K.R., Assistant Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics, IGKV, Raipur, for her valuable guidance, encouragement, and support throughout this research work. I am thankful to Dr. Hulas Pathak, the Head, Department of Agricultural Economics and Agri Business Management, and Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur, for providing the necessary academic support and facilities. I gratefully acknowledge the respondents for their valuable cooperation and information. Finally, I express my heartfelt gratitude to my parents and family for their constant support, encouragement, and prayers.

References

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