AN ATTEMPT TO DETERMINE THE SCALE OF FOOD CONSERVATISM – RESULTS OF THE PILOT STUDY
Retaining cultural, social and gastronomic heritage is an important part of national identity and has economic implications for the local economy who produce food. Preservation of the culinary heritage is favored by consumer conservati sm especially towards traditional food. The topic of traditional food has previously been d iscussed in literature, but scales used in the measurement of attitudes towards traditional food a re limited. This paper focuses on traditional food and identifies and empirically assesses a measurement scale – food conservatism scale. A paper survey was administered to a convenience sa mple of 451 young adult consumers (students) in South East Poland. A total of 10 stat ements describing conservatism to traditional food was assessed using Cronbach’s Alpha, principal omponent factor analysis. Finally the conservative attitudes related to food are characte rized by six (of 10) statements, related to health aspects of traditional food, trust in this k ind of food and consumption of traditional food as to celebrate some events. Further research on onsumer conservatism is highly recommended in order to better understand consumers’ m otives and factors determining food conservatism.