Does the reduced food-related lifestyle questionnaire correctly classify new consumers?

This study is based on the food-related lifestyle instrument (developed by MAPP, Denmark) and concerns the development of a reduced food-related lifestyle questionnaire for time and cost-saving segmentation of consumers into food-related lifestyle segments. The number of items in the original food-related lifestyle questionnaire was reduced using discriminant analysis, and the reduced questionnaire was used to predict segment membership of new respondents. The reliability of the reduced questionnaire was tested by a comparison of the descriptions of the newly recruited segment with the "original" segment descriptions. Descriptions of the newly recruited segments were obtained by focus group research. The original segment descriptions were based on data obtained from an application of the food-related lifestyle instrument in Ireland. The comparison focused on convenience-related topics, as the segments that were used for comparison were high frequency convenience food purchasers. Results showed that the focus group descriptions reflected reasonably well the main characteristics of the original segment descriptions. It was concluded that the membership classifications as identified using the reduced questionnaire were in keeping with the original segment descriptions.