Abstract:
Milk is one of the most essential foods to humans and it contains many nutrients such as protein, calcium, phosphorus, vitamin B2 and vitamin B12. Intake of a sufficient amount of milk products is recommended for healthy lifestyle of humans. The consumers’ attitudes, demographic and socioeconomic factors are affect with their milk consumption behaviors in Sri Lanka. Therefore, the objective of this study was identify the appropriate factor structures of the consumer attitudes, demographic and socioeconomic factors which affect on milk consumption (either local milk or imported milk) among the Matara district. We conducted explorative factor analysis in order to discuss the correlation between the consumers’ attitudes (observed variables) and latent variables (factors). To identify the factor solutions for the set of observed variables, the data from 421 were collected through a questionnaire based on the 16 variables. According to the Bartlett’s Test it confirmed that the original variables are correlated and factor analysis useful with the data. Factor analysis was carried out the consumer attitudes, demographic and socioeconomic factors as independent variables which can be categorized into Socio Economic Group, Cost and credibility, Sensitivity, Availability and Marketing using principal component exaction method and varimax rotating method. The KMO statistic indicated that 0.753 (> 0.6) which confirmed that the validity of the factor analysis.
