A RESEARCH ON THE CONSUMERS’ CONSIDERATION FOR EXPIRATION DATE OF THE PACKAGED FOOD PRODUCTS: THE SAMPLE OF KASTAMONU PROVINCE’ S CENTRAL DISTRICT

This research has been carried out in the wake of the questionnarie answered by the randomlyselected 116 respondents. The goal of the research reveals the behaviors of the consumers onconsideration of expiration date of the packaged food products, according to their householdincome groups, educational levels, genders, ages and occupations. The respondents have beenseparated in three income groups according to their monthly incomes, as up to 750 TL, 751–1500 TL and over 1500 TL. According to the findings of the research, the safety of the foodproducts is more important than expiration date as for the consumers. The attached importanceto expiration date varies between 70,6 % and 76,9 % for the different income groups; the malesand older people (50 and above) take heed of expiration date much than the others, educationallevel doesn’t create any considerable difference and in respect of occupations, consideration ratiois between 66,7 % and 77,5 %. Rising of this ratio is deemed important from the stand point ofthe healthy nutrition of the consumers. A chi square test of was performed to examine the relationbetween the education level and the consumers’ consideration of expiration date of the products.The relation beween these variables was significant, χ2 (2,N=116)= 7,377, p 0.05, but the otherrelations were not significant.