Abstract—Functional foods represent one of the most
interesting areas of research and innovation in the food
industry. There are commercialized functional products in
Malaysian market presently. Although the consumption of
functional foods is increasing, relatively little is known about
how consumers perceive these products and their buying
frequency towards natural and synthetic functional foods in
Malaysia. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine
the relationship between socio-demographic variables and
consumers’ knowledge and buying frequency towards Natural
and synthetic functional foods. Systematic random sampling
was used in this study and 2004 households are interview by
using structure questionnaire in Malaysia. Descriptive analysis
and chi-square analysis were used in this study. The result
shows that education level, area, income level, age and child
under 18 years old have significant relationship with their
knowledge to differentiate natural and synthetic functional
foods. Moreover, the result also shows that marital status, area,
education level, household size, age, income level and child
under 18 years old have significant relationship with their
purchasing behavior towards functional foods.
Index Terms—Knowledge, natural functional foods,
purchasing, synthetic functional foods, socio-demographic
profile.
The authors are with the Department of Agribusiness and Information
Systems, Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM
Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia (e-mail: phuahkitteng@gmail.com,
rgolnaz@putra.upm.edu.my, zam@agri.upm.edu.my, and
nasir@agri.upm.edu.my).
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Cite: K. T. Phuah, G. Rezai, Z. Mohamed, and M. N. Shamsudin, " Socio-Demographic Profile in Purchasing Natural and Synthetic Functional Foods in Malaysia," International Journal of Social Science and Humanity vol. 5, no. 7, pp. 604-607, 2015.