The purpose of this study was to examine the network structure of purchase reasons of home meal replacements (HMR) among single-person household consumers, with a focus on differences by socio-demographic characteristics. For this purpose, the study a...
The purpose of this study was to examine the network structure of purchase reasons of home meal replacements (HMR) among single-person household consumers, with a focus on differences by socio-demographic characteristics. For this purpose, the study analyzed data from 456 single-person households who reported purchasing HMR in the 2023 Consumer Behavior Survey for Food. The sample showed a relatively balanced gender distribution, with consumers in their 20s and 30s accounting for the largest proportion, and the majority reporting monthly food expenditures of 400,000 KRW or more. Reasons for purchasing HMRs were measured using nine items provided in the survey: cost saving, taste, lack of cooking skills, lack of cooking time, cooking inconvenience, food variety, reduction of food waste, ease of storage and portability, and nutritional balance. The main findings of this study are as follows. First, the analysis of purchase reason combinations showed that the co-selection of cost saving and cooking inconvenience was the most prevalent overall. This pattern was commonly observed among women, individuals aged 40 years and older, and consumers with monthly food expenditures below KRW 400,000. In contrast, among men, the dominant combination was cost saving and lack of cooking skills, whereas among consumers in their 20s–30s and those with higher food expenditures, the combination of lack of time for cooking and cooking inconvenience was more prominent. Second, the centrality analyses revealed that cooking inconvenience had the highest degree centrality, indicating that it was most extensively connected with other purchase reasons and was frequently considered together with a wide range of reasons in HMR purchasing. Cost saving ranked next in terms of connectivity, whereas nutritional balance showed relatively limited connections with other purchase reasons. Across both genders, cooking inconvenience and cost saving were highly connected reasons; however, lack of cooking skills was more prominent among men, while lack of time for cooking was more salient among women. Cooking inconvenience also exhibited the highest betweenness centrality in most groups, suggesting that it frequently served as a key intermediary linking different combinations of purchase reasons, except among the 40–50 age group, in which cost saving played this role. Overall, this study contributes to the literature by elucidating the interconnected relationships among HMR purchase reasons. The findings suggest that incorporating the relational characteristics of consumers’ purchase motivations may support the development of more targeted and effective HMR product development and marketing strategies in the future.