Development of Thai Cuisine for Western Consumers: Product Idea Generation and Screening

Abstract

Thai cuisine is now popular in Western countries. As companies increasingly vie for increased distribution and market expansion, how products are marketed and developed for international consumers pose a serious challenge. This survey was conducted to investigate attitudes of Western consumers toward Thai cuisine, to obtain ideas that should be developed to provide convenience and to identify the market potential for further Thai cuisine product development studies. Personal interviews were conducted. The questionnaire used consisted of 16 questions on personal, attitudinal and preference ranking data. The 400 respondents participated in the study. The vast majority of the respondents rate strongly agree and somewhat agree to these following statements; 'Thai food is now a very popular international cuisine', 'hot and spicy describe Thai food', 'Thai food contains health promoting ingredients' and 'I may not want to eat Thai food everyday but I will certainly want to return to it often'. The result of preference ranking showed that the top three most popular dishes were Tom Yum Kung, followed by Pad Thai and Kaeng Kew Wan. After checklist screening, a decision was made to develop Tom Yum Kung. These results provide direction for the development of Thai cuisine for Western consumers.