Assessing consumer behaviour towards fish sauce products by using food choice questionnaire

Vietnam Journal of Science and Technology 57 (3B) (2019) 87-96 
doi:10.15625/2525-2518/57/3B/14411 
ASSESSING CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS FISH SAUCE 
PRODUCTS BY USING FOOD CHOICE QUESTIONNAIRE 
Le Thuy Linh
1, 2, *
, Vuong Diu Ai
1
, Nguyen Hoang Dzung
2
, Le Minh Tam
1 
1
Faculty of Food Technology, Ho Chi Minh City University of Food Industry, 140 Le Trong Tan, 
Tay Thanh Ward, Tan Phu District, Ho Chi Minh City 
2
Sensory Laboratory, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, 268 Ly Thuong Kiet, 
Ward 14, District 10, Ho Chi Minh City 
*
Email: linhlt@hufi.edu.vnv 
Received: 12 September 2019; Accepted for publication: 4 November 2019 
Abstract. This study aims to assess Vietnamese consumer behaviour towards fish sauce product. 
It consists of two experiments. In the first experiment, consumer concept was explored using 
word association method. It was performed on 300 Vietnamese consumers with the prompt word 
as “fish sauce”. The data were analysed by a triangulation method. The results evoke six factors 
associated with fish sauce as Sensory Appeal, Health, Price, Convenience, Traditional Value, 
Quality and Safety. These findings were the starting point for a modification of food choice 
questionnaire (FCQ) adapted to fish sauce product. In the second experiment, the modified FCQ 
with 18 items was used to assess the consumer behaviour. The survey was performed on 300 
Vietnamese consumers. The data were analysed by using Exploratory Factor Analysis and 
Confirmatory Factor Analysis. The obtained model with five factors was adapted to fish sauce 
for Vietnamese consumers ( ⁄ = 1.67, GFI = 0.93, CFI = 0.92, RSME = 0.47). In this, 
Sensory Appeal is the most important factor which might affect consumer food choice 
motivations. We expect that these results will be useful for the local manufacturers who want to 
develop traditional food products and/or enlarge national market. 
Keywords: consumer behaviour, fish sauce, word association, food choice questionnaire. 
Classification numbers: 1.5.1, 1.5.5. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
Since the early half of the 20
th
 century, sensory science has grown rapidly and been used as 
a tool to support food product development process. Over the last two decades, the complexity 
of consumers has been increasingly acknowledged. Thus sensory researchers have become 
interested in studying other aspects of product consumption, for instance consumer concept and 
behaviour, which play an important role in consumer decision making process. 
To address aspects of consumer concept, several qualitative methods have been added into 
the toolbox of sensory researchers. Among these methods, word association (WA) is frequently 
Le Thuy Linh, Vuong Diu Ai, Nguyen Hoang Dzung, Le Minh Tam 
88 
used because of its easy application. WA has psychometric origins [1]. It is a qualitative method, 
which is based on the process of reminiscent in human perception. In the field of food science, 
WA has been widely applied to determine consumer concept towards, for instance, traditional 
food product [2], local food product [3], rice [4], green tea [5], well-being [6], and packaging 
[7]. 
To address aspects of consumer behaviour on food choice motives, Food Choice 
Questionnaire (FCQ) is the most frequently used tool. Its original form consists of 36 items, 
which were structured into nine factors [8]. Some authors showed that the nine factors proposed 
by were consistent across cultures, for instance, food choice motivations were studied in Japan, 
Taiwan, Malaysia, and New Zealand [9], in Canada, Belgium and Italy [10], and in Belgium, 
Hungary, Romania, and Philippines [11]. Nevertheless, in practices, these current factors as well 
as their items could not cover diverse research contexts. Therefore, FCQ were modified for an 
adaptation to particular research aims, populations and/or languages [12]. For instance, 
Fotopoulos et al. (2009) proposed a short version of FCQ in which the “ethical concern” factor 
was eliminated for Greek people [13]. Honkanen and Frewer proposed a modified FCQ in which 
the three items as animal welfare, political and religious values were taken into account for 
Russian people [14]. More recently, Pieniaka et al. proposed a modified version of FCQ with the 
mood factor excluded for subjects in six European countries (Belgium, France, Italy, Norway, 
Poland, and Spain) [15]. 
Fish sauce is a very popular and traditional condiment in most of Eastern countries, such 
as: Korea, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. Since Vietnam officially became a full member of 
ASEAN and WTO, fish sauce products in particular and other traditional products in general can 
be easily exchanged across countries. From a positive aspect, this is an opportunity to enlarge 
the national market for domestic products. But still, from a negative aspect, domestic products 
have a certain amount of competition. So understanding the consumer concept and behaviour 
towards traditional food products (TFPs) is of crucial importance as this could help domestic 
businesses increase their competitive position in the marketplace. 
This study aimed to assess the consumer concept and behaviour towards fish sauce 
products. It consists of two parts. First, the concept of fish sauce products was explored using 
WA method. The obtained results were the basis to modify the FCQ adapted to fish sauce. The 
modified questionnaire was validated before being used to measure the behaviour of Vietnamese 
consumers. 
2. MATERIALS AND METHODS 
2.1. Exploring consumer concept using word association 
WA task consists of three following steps. Step 1 – Introduction – The experimenter 
explains to subjects that they will receive a prompt word, and they are asked to elicit three words 
(or phrases) that come to mind. The time taken for each word is limited to a maximum of 30 
seconds. There is no right or wrong answers. Ste ... 
Female 66.3 University 89 
Male 33.7 High school 10.3 
Region (%) Under high school 0.7 
South 65 Frequency of use (%) 
Middle 22 Daily 68 
North 13 Normal 25 
Age (years) Sometimes 21 
20 – 24 57.7 Occupation (%) 
25 – 35 18.7 Full-time job 51.7 
>35 23.6 Part-time job 11 
 Student 34.3 
 Retire 0 
 Housework 3 
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90 
Table 3. Motivation factors and survey items. 
Factor Item No. Code 
When I choose fish sauce, the important thing is that  
1. Sensory appeal*(Se) 
Tastes good Item 13 Se1 
Smells nice Item 3 Se2 
Eye-catching packaging Item 17 Se3 
Distinctive brownish color Item 14 Se4 
Has a pleasant texture Item 19 Se5 
2. Health*(He) 
Keeps me healthy Item 2 He1 
Contains lots of protein, vitamins, omega-3, iron and lysine Item 16 He2 
Eating with fish sauce will help us eat more, thus providing more active 
energy 
Item 24 He3 
3. Traditional value (Tra) 
Has origin of materials (geographical indications) Item 4 Tra1 
Is familiar with me and my family Item 6 Tra2 
Be processed/prepared in a special way Item 12 Tra3 
Is special product that reflects the nation or local culture Item 15 Tra4 
Is associated to specific celebrations of my country/family Item 22 Tra5 
4. Quality and safety (Qu) 
Get certification of Vietnam high quality goods by consumers Item 7 Qu1 
Conform to Vietnam or global quality standard Item 5 Qu2 
Has a clear origin of production Item 20 Qu3 
Has Eco-friendly packaging Item 10 Qu4 
5. Price* (Pr) 
Is not expensive Item 11 Pr1 
Is cheap Item 24 Pr2 
Is good value for money Item 8 Pr3 
6. Convenience* (Co) 
Is easy to prepare Item 1 Co1 
Takes no time to prepare Item 18 Co2 
Can be bought in shops close to where I live or work Item 21 Co3 
Is easily available in shops and supermarkets Item 9 Co4 
Note: Item number is used for questionnaire; Code is used for data analysis 
*Reference: Steptoe, Pollard, & Wardle (Steptoe et al., 1995). 
The survey data was analysed using exploratory factor analysis (principal component 
analysis and varimax rotation) to examine the underlying structure of the questionnaire. The 
number of factors was selected following criteria: (1) Kaiser’s criterion and scree test where the 
factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0 and above the “breaking point” on the scree plot were 
retained, and (2) a good interpretability of the factor. The number of items within each factor, 
the so-called internal consistency reliability, was selected by using Cronbach’s alpha and 
corrected item-total correlation [16]. From the statistical point of view, Cronbach’s alpha 
represents average correlations among items on a scale, normally greater than 0.6. Due to the 
fact that Cronbach’s alpha are sensitive to the number of items in the scale, the corrected item-
total correlations could also be reported, with acceptable values greater than 0.3 [17]. The CFA 
model was assessed using maximum likelihood estimation. Model fit indices presented include: 
Chi-square, Degrees of freedom (df), Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), the 
TuckerLewis Index (TLI), and the Comparative Fit Index (CFI). It is important to note that 
RMSEA 0.95 suggest an acceptance for model fit. The analysis was 
Assessing consumer behaviour towards fish sauce products 
91 
conducted using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS®) version 23 (IPM Corp, 
Armonk, NY, USA). 
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 
3.1. The concept of Vietnamese consumers towards fish sauce product 
Consumer concept provides an interesting insight into a particular product. In the context of 
this study, a list of 710 words was elicited from the prompt word “fish sauce” and represented in 
form of word cloud (cf. Figure 1). The larger size the word, the more frequently it was 
associated with the concept. The concept “fish sauce” was related to delicious, tasty, salty, smell, 
and traditional, etc. The elicited words were grouped into categories based on their semantic 
similarity by triangulation method. In other words, three independent consumer researchers were 
in charge. Table 4 represents eight categories/factors. Their percentage of occurrences are as 
following: sensory appeal (69.9 %), quality & safety (11 %), tradition (6.8 %), convenience 
(3.8 %), health (3 %), price (2.9 %), familiarity (2 %), and origin (0.6 %). 
Figure 1. Word cloud for the prompt word fish sauce. 
Table 4. Some of categories and words/phrase responding in word association with stimulus word “fish 
sauce”. 
Category Word/phrase responding Total (%) Frequence 
Sensory appeal 
Delicious, tasty, easy eating, good smell, 
flavor, package, salty, brown, limpid 
69.9 496 
Quality & Safety Safety, quality, hygiene, prestige, natural 11 79 
Tradition Traditional, long-standing 6.8 48 
Convenience Easy to buy, popular, usual 3.8 27 
Health Nutrient, good for health 3 21 
Price Price, cheap, reasonable price 2.9 21 
Familiarity Familiarity, habit, necessary, popular 2 14 
Origin Viet Nam, Phu Quoc, origin 0.6 4 
The four factors sensory appeal, health, convenience, and price were retained in the 
modified FCQ. Due to the fact that they were not only refound in this study but also determined 
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in other studies [18 - 21]. In addition, “traditional value” and “quality and safety” were found as 
the two new factors adapted to fish sauce, (cf. Table 2). 
3.2. The food choice motives of Vietnamese consumers towards fish sauce product 
The internal consistency of the 24 items was assessed using Cronbach’s α and Corrected 
Item-Total Correlations. Table 5 represents Cronbach’s α values of six factors. As these values 
are greater than 0.6, it indicates a good internal consistency of the items within their factor, 
except for the health. Besides, the corrected item-total correlations are examined for their sign. 
As can be seen from the results, such recorded indices for the five factors were all positive. This 
suggests that the items were measuring the same underlying characteristics and none of them 
had been reverse-scored. 
Table 5. Measure of scale reliability. 
Factor Item Cronbach's Alpha 
Corrected Item-Total 
Correlation 
Mean 
Sensory 
Se1 
0.744 
.481 
3.8 
Se2 .392 
Se3 .612 
Se4 .407 
Se5 .659 
Health 
He1 
0.451 
.325 
3.8 He2 .306 
He3 .204 
Traditional value 
Tra1 
0.651 
.316 
3.9 
Tra2 .434 
Tra3 .457 
Tra4 .418 
Tra5 .392 
Quality and 
safety 
Qu1 
0.632 
.362 
3.8 
Qu2 .527 
Qu3 .423 
Qu4 .353 
Price 
Pr1 
0.628 
.543 
3.6 Pr2 .435 
Pr3 .343 
Convenience 
Co1 
0.704 
.438 
3.9 
Co2 .458 
Co3 .564 
Co4 .500 
Note: Cronbach's alpha on standardized items. 
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Figure 2. Confirmatory factor diagram of the five main motivations factors in the model 
Table 6 represents the results obtained from EFA performed on a five factors model. With 
KMO = 0.71 and p-value < 0.05 for Bartlett's test of sphericity, this suggests that Sensory, 
Quality & Safety, Convenience, Price and Traditional value are the five factors more suitable 
when measuring food choice motivation. Figure 2 represents the CFA model along with its 
statistics ( /DF = 1.67, GFI = 0.93, CFI = 0.92, RSME = 0.47). Such values are close to the 
standard meaning that the goodness of fit of the scale is acceptable. 
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Table 6. Exploratory factor analysis, item means, standard deviations, and item–total correlations. 
Item 
Factors 
Se. Con. Q & S Pr. Trad. M SD I-T 
Se5 0.880 3.70 0.819 0.659 
Se3 0.847 3.58 0.867 0.612 
Se1 0.601 4.03 0.813 0.481 
Se2 0.539 3.91 0.831 0.392 
Co3 0.762 3.85 0.821 0.564 
Co4 0.731 4.04 0.817 0.500 
Co2 0.659 3.91 0.740 0.458 
Co1 0.636 3.83 0.695 0.438 
Qu2 0.760 3.57 0.984 0.527 
Qu4 0.676 3.80 0.918 0.353 
Qu3 0.656 4.18 0.869 0.423 
Qu1 0.586 3.80 0.851 0.362 
Pr1 0.840 3.65 0.901 0.543 
Pr2 0.731 3.25 0.932 0.435 
Pr3 
0.554 
4.02 0.814 0.343 
Tra3 
 0.754 3.90 0.824 0.457 
Tra4 
 0.730 4.06 0.806 0.418 
Tra1 0.623 4.23 0.735 0.316 
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. 
Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. 
Abbreviation: EV: Eigenvalues; Cum.: Cumulative %; M: Mean; Se.- Sensory; Q&S- Quality & Safety; 
Con.-Convenience; Trad.-Traditional value, Pr.- Price 
4. CONCLUSION 
This study highlights the food choice model with five factors (Sensory appeal, Quality & 
Safety, Tradition, Convenience, Price) adapted to fish sauce products for Vietnamese consumers. 
In this, Sensory Appeal is the most important factor which might affect consumer food choice 
motivations. In addition, this study retained two other important factors as “Quality and Safety” 
and “Traditional value”, which were mentioned previously in the publication of [5]. Further 
research could be conducted to determine invariant factors toward traditional food products 
across time and product categories, especially for Vietnamese consumers. From the application’s 
perspective, such factors are crucial in the context where the local manufacturers want to 
develop traditional food products and enlarge national market. 
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