The Influence of Child Food Packaging Design on Perceptions of Kenyan Consumers: Conjoint Analysis Combined with Eye Tracking

Abstract

Locally manufactured, healthy and affordable child foods based on traditional recipes have the potential to improve the high child malnutrition rates in African drylands. Professional, informative packaging is needed by women groups manufacturing such foods to access the formal market. With the aim of identifying suitable packaging designs, a conjoint experiment was combined with eye tracking. 16 packaging designs were created (D-efficient design), randomly displayed and their attractiveness rated by 98 participants. Overall, the results indicate that child food packaging designs displaying food safety marks and detailed nutritional information could help Kenyan consumers to build trust in the offered product. Consumers gain information from pictures displaying the product’s ingredients as well as a logo composed using the colours of the Kenyan flag. The picture of a cute cartoon animal helps consumers identify the product as child food