Food Purchasing Behaviours of Youth in Northern Thailand

This project seeks to understand the relationship between changing retail formats, youth consumer decision-making and the campaigns of local food advocates and their impacts on food cultures. General research objectives are to determine how youth in Chiang Mai understand their current eating practices and determine why youth involvement in the alternative agricultural (AA) movement is limited and to investigate how AA organizations can better involve youth. A multi-method approach was employed which included; semi-structured interviews (N=33), a questionnaire survey (N=35) and food journals (N=9). Data collected from youth participants revealed that the top three factors considered when making food decision are taste, proximity and price. Further research revealed that youth were actively interested in safe and healthy food. These results suggest an opening for how AA organizations could more effectively engage youth by building on their interest in healthy food while taking into account the factors that influence their food choices.