Food neophilia among university students in Sofia - Bulgaria

Abstract

There has been a vast number of researches on observing food neophobia and food neophilia among humans and also animals. Even though the topic has been of great interest to researchers for many years most of the studies have been done generally in more developed countries then Bulgaria. The nature of this study is uncommon in Bulgaria and also generally for the Balkan region. The countries in this region are still considered as less developed and second level developed countries with potential for foreign investments and developing further the markets in those countries. This dissertation has an objective to study the effect of food neophobia levels among the university student population in Sofia - Bulgaria and their behavior and attitude patterns. Bulgaria has possible emerging markets and because it is a member of the European Union the funds coming from the EU make possible these markets to develop. The paper evaluates except the levels of food neophobia among the university students also assesses factors such as experience and different demographic characteristics which can possibly affect how people perceive foods from different cultural cuisines. The tool used for the evaluation is characterizes as quantitative and research was carried out in the city of Sofia, Bulgaria. What was found during the research was that the university students in Sofia are neither neophobic nor neophilic. In addition their preferences showed that they favor more the Bulgaria cuisine. The variation among the different segments such as gender and place of birth were insignificant in comparison to the general score of food neophobia of the population.