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Food related Lifestyle as a research method
Although human values guide behaviour, values cannot predict behaviour directly.
Consumer behaviour researchers Grunert, Brunso & Bis (1997) created an instrument that
focuses on behaviour in measuring the linkages between food products and end goals. Food
Related Lifestyle (FRL) is a method to investigate eating and shopping habits of food
products, what might be useful for companies from food industry in understanding
consumers’ needs, particularly what they search in food products, how they buy food and
cook it, what might affect better adjustment of market offer to specific consumer needs.
FRL allows mapping consumer trends in the market, analyze changes in time and across
different cultures and countries. Most research studies investigates European countries like
Denmark, France, Germany, Spain, Great Britain, Ireland (Sholderer et al., 2004; Hoek et al.,
2004; Ryan et al., 2004; O'sullivan et al., 2005). The studies were also conducted in Poland
(Balon et al., 2015) and Croatia (Kesicc& Piri-Rajh, 2003). Some of the researches have
verified this method outside Europe, especially in Asia (ChengHsi & HwangJaw, 2009;
Grunert et al., 2011).
The original version of the survey has an ordered structure based on 5 areas (research
constructs). Each construct consists of 2-6 dimensions (in total 23 FRL’s dimensions), where
each dimension includes 3 statements, in total 69 statements (Sholderer et al., 2004). The
FRL dimensions were formed from statements by adding up the scores of the original
variables from 1 - totally disagree to 7 - totally agree.
The collected data might be used for further analysis using the methodology proposed by
the authors FRL can, among other things (Balon et al., 2014):
1. Describe the dietary habits of the study group, based on pre-defined, theoretically and
practically verified areas and dimensions of FRL.
2. Identify the relationships and connections between the different aspects of the FRL,
which are characteristic of the examined population.
3. Identify and define the "style of life" (FRL) to meet the nutritional needs of the
population studied.
4. Make segmentation of consumers due to the declared approach to the dimensions
defined by the FRL.
5. Formulate and verify hypotheses regarding the observed regularities resulting from the
similarities and differences between consumers. It is the basic method for consumer
segmentation. Identify strategically useful consumer food-related segments according to
how they perceive value in food products (Reid et al., 2001).
Most of the studies are dividing consumers into groups (Brunso & Grunert, 2007):
The uninvolved food consumer,
The careless food consumer,
The conservative food consumer,
The rational food consumer,
The adventurous food consumer.
Some of the research indicates also emerging groups such as (Brunso & Grunert, 2007):
The moderate/pragmatic food consumer,
The hedonistic food consumer,
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