Economic-financial considerations on the consumption of cereal products (a case study on the population of Iaşi county)

Abstract

Having in view the role and the importance of cereals in the people’s alimentation, the goal of the authors was to determine the consumption of cereal products by the population of Iaşi County and to point out the main factors influencing this consumption. The study was based on statistical survey and whiten questionnaire. The survey had 137 subjects, of which 120 were validated. The questionnaire had a number of 11 questions and 5 more questions of identification. The studied cereal products were wheat flour, maize flour, rice, white bread, black bread, bakery products, pasta and other cereal products. The questions of the questionnaire referred to the quantity of cereal products consumed by a person within a month, frequency of consumption, place where the cereal products were more frequently purchased and self-consumption. These criteria were taken into account in the buying decision, as well as the highest and the lowest prices the consumers were willing to pay for purchasing the cereal product. The analysis of answers was done according to genre, age, personal income and education level of the interrogated persons. They established the main characteristics the cereal products might have in order to be purchased, namely: freshness, richness in vitamins and minerals, low content in fats, necessaries information written on the package, lack of genetically modified ingredients, etc. A very important factor in the buying decision was the distance between home and the shopping centre and the quality guarantee of the purchased products. Data were processed by using a special research programme of social statistics (RPSS –variant 12).