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Consumer Attitude and Visit Intention toward Food-Trucks: Targeting

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DOI: 10.1080/15378020.2017.1368807

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Consumer Attitude and Visit Intention toward

Food-Trucks: Targeting Millennials

Borham Yoon & Yeasun Chung

To cite this article: Borham Yoon & Yeasun Chung (2017): Consumer Attitude and Visit Intention
toward Food-Trucks: Targeting Millennials, Journal of Foodservice Business Research, DOI:
10.1080/15378020.2017.1368807

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 JOURNAL OF FOODSERVICE BUSINESS RESEARCH
https://doi.org/10.1080/15378020.2017.1368807

Consumer Attitude and Visit Intention toward Food-Trucks:

Targeting Millennials
Borham Yoona and Yeasun Chungb
a
Department of Retail, Hospitality, and Tourism Management, University of Tennessee Knoxville, Knoxville,
TN, USA; bSchool of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
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Food-trucks are growing in popularity, and they are now part of the Food-truck; perceived risk/
foodie culture. As they fit well with Millennials’ desire to try new things benefit; attitude; behavioral
—new foods, and a new food culture—the number of trucks on the intention
streets is expected to continue to rise. To understand, how millennial
consumers think and make decisions about food-truck dining, this study
identifies benefits and risks of food-truck dining and their impact on a
millennial consumer’s attitude and visit intention. This study finds con-
sumers see hygienic and environmental risk and convenience and
hedonic benefits in food-truck dining. The findings from this study
provide evidence that hygienic and environmental risks of food-trucks
negatively influence consumers’ attitudes and visit intentions toward
food-truck dining experience, while hedonic benefit leads to favorable
attitude and visit intention. The findings further indicate that a signifi-
cant relationship exists between consumer attitude and purchasing
intention. This study helps food-truck marketers and operators to
develop effective marketing and operational strategies to increase the
visits of existing food-truck diners and attract potential consumers.

Introduction
Food-trucks have become increasingly popular over the last 5 years with an annual sales
growth of 9.3%, and the food-truck industry is a top performer in the large food-service
sector (Brennan, 2014). Food-truck business performed much better than other players in
the restaurant industry during the economic recession of 2007 to 2009 (Brennan, 2014),
since consumers sought out replacements at budget-conscious prices. The industry is
expected to continue to grow, not only because consumers increasingly favor a unique
experience and new cuisine at affordable prices, but also because an entrepreneur does not
have to be financially equipped with an initial investment to start a mobile-food business.
Compared to a traditional brick-and-mortar restaurant, starting a food-truck business
requires substantially less capital (McLaughlin, 2009). The restaurant industry has rapidly
embraced a food-truck as a feasible distribution channel for reaching consumers, launch-
ing new products and testing niche markets in this sector.
Millennials also called Generation Y, have become a growing consumer market in the
restaurant industry, and they fuel the industry’s overall growth (Lukovitz, 2009). About 75
million young consumers in U.S. comprise the millennial group, which is the largest

CONTACT Yeasun Chung y.chung@okstate.edu Hotel and Restaurant Administration,Oklahoma State University,
365 Human Sciences West, Stillwater, OK 74078, USA.
© 2017 Taylor & Francis
 2 B. YOON AND Y. CHUNG

generation group (Fry, 2015). Current college-aged students are an important subset of this
generation and especially important to today’s food-service industry. They are the most
powerful consumer group in the food-service industry, since they tend to dine out twice as
frequently as the rest of the population and have more disposable income than that of the
previous generation (Lukovitz, 2009). Different customer segments have different tendencies
affecting their choices and preferences (Zikmund, 1999). Millennial consumers are known to
be more spontaneous and seek out more adventure and novelty in evaluating product and
service than other generations (Gurău, 2012). These characteristics of millennial generation
are reflected in their food purchasing behaviors. For example, millennial consumers are
interested in exploring new beer tastes (Ascher, 2012) and willing to try new kinds of ethnic
cuisines (Sung, 2013). Therefore, this group of diners could be a good target market in the
food-truck industry that provides new dining experience including unique and exotic dishes
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and food culture (Solomon, 2014). Understanding millennials’ perception of food-trucks and
identifying their unmet needs would be a powerful driver of food-truck business success.
Despite the prevalence of food-truck operations and the increasing demand for food-truck
dining experience, little research has been conducted about the food-truck or mobile-food
business. Existing studies on the mobile-food business focused mainly on hygienic or food-
safety issues. Moreover, consumer attitude studies were often conducted in Asian countries,
where eating on a mobile platform was much more common than in Western countries (e.g.
Choi, Lee, & Ok, 2013). While their findings about Asian diners give an idea about consumers’
attitudes toward street food, it is hard to apply their findings to Western consumers and the
Western food-truck industry, which faces different challenges, culture demands, and regulatory
hurdles. The risk or benefits perceived by U.S. or Western consumers could be different from
those in other geographic areas. Food often reflects culture, people, place, and history in a
country or local area, and street food increasingly plays a role as an enhancer and force-
multiplier of tourism. Accordingly, understanding food-truck consumers’ attitudes and beha-
vior in Western countries would also benefit the street-food businesses in other countries.
Therefore, the purpose of the study is 1) to identify perceived risks and benefits relative to food-
truck dining in the U.S. market, and 2) to investigate the effects of perceived risk and benefit on
consumers’ attitudes and behavioral intentions toward the food-truck dining experience.

Literature review
Food-truck business
The food-truck market (mobile-food-service industry) is one of the fast growing and
outperforming segments of the food-service industry in the United States (Brennan, 2014).
The food-truck market has increased dramatically from 2006 to 2015, and the size of food-
truck market is expected about 2.7 billion in 2017. Brennan (2014) reported that, although
the market share of food-truck food-service is relatively small compared to other restau-
rant sectors, the food-truck market is expected to expand its market share. According to
National Restaurant Association (NRA) (2011), food-truck business is one of the hottest
trends in restaurant industry and 59% of consumers are interested in food-truck dining
experiences. A food-truck is not a simple taco or hot dog truck what we used to have on
these days. There are many gourmet food-trucks that often serve ethnic or fusion cuisine.
 JOURNAL OF FOODSERVICE BUSINESS RESEARCH 3

As positive momentum from the gourmet food movement is anticipated, the market will
enjoy a strong growth.
Food-truck business operates with large vehicles equipped with facilities for cooking
and selling food, and moving from location-to-location on a daily basis. A distinguishing
feature of food-trucks provides an exotic, innovative, and unique atmosphere and food,
where consumer may enjoy new and different experience. Food-trucks also offer an
interactive environment, where consumer may communicate with passionate chefs and
other food-truck fans (FoodTrucks, 2014; Mayyasi, 2013). Moreover, the changing con-
sumer preferences in favor of unique and gourmet cuisine at a budget-conscious price
facilitated the boom in mobile-food-service businesses. Such unique environments offered
by food-trucks may appeal to a growing number of millennial consumers who tend to
explore adventure and innovative experiences.
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Despite, an increasing number of food-truck operations and interests, there is little

research that explores consumer’s attitude and behavioral intentions toward food-truck
dining service. Moreover, the question of why consumers either hesitate or are eager to
choose food-truck dining experience remains unanswered. What risks or benefits do
consumer perceive when they dine out at food-trucks?

Consumer perceived risk and benefit

Perception of risk and benefit has been a useful framework for explaining a consumer’s
purchasing behaviors (Bauer, 1960; Khongtong, Karim, Othman, & Bolong, 2016; Kim,
Ferrin, & Rao, 2008; Taylor, 1974). Perceived risk is the combined effects of probabilities,
the uncertainty involved in a purchase decision (Cunningham, 1967; Ulleberg & Rundmo,
2003), while perceived benefit is defined as a consumer’s belief about the extent to which
people will become better off from the purchase and/or use of an object (Kim, Ferrin,
et al., 2008). Previous studies have explored food-safety issues in small-sized food enter-
prises, such as the food-truck business (Azanza, Gatchalian, & Ortega, 2000; Walker,
Pritchard, & Forsythe, 2003). Moreover, consumers may be concerned that foods prepared
by street vendors are typically nutritionally imbalanced and high in fat, because of using
poor quality ingredients (Taylor et al., 2000). With respect to perceived benefits of food-
truck dining, convenience such as quick service and easy accessibility (Tinker, 2003) and
hedonic value (Choi et al., 2013; Park, 2004) have been considered in the previous studies.

Effects of perceived risk and benefit on attitude and behavioral intention

Benefit and risk perception drive individual decisions about food consumption (Ueland
et al., 2012). Individuals may be more conservative for the perception of food than any
other product, since the consequence is critical for their well-being and health (Ueland
et al., 2012). They would make food choices, when they can avoid undesirable conse-
quence and persuaded by benefits.
Although food-trucks conduct business in a similar manner of restaurants, food-trucks
operate with limited facilities for food storage, preparation, and cooking. This often builds
up concerns about cleaning and sanitation of food-contact surfaces. Prospect theory
explains how individuals make decisions, when they confront alternatives with risks
(Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). According to the theory, individuals tend to avoid a risky
 4 B. YOON AND Y. CHUNG

choice in the presence of gains and accept a risky choice in the presence of losses. This
perspective establishes reference points for consumers’ purchase decision in the food-
truck industry. The intensity of consumers’ perceived risks of food truck products and
services could limit their choices to purchase.
Ajzen (1985) who proposed the theory of planned behavior (TPB) proposed that a
consumer’s attitude is shaped by both perceived risks and benefits, as people engage in
behavior that determines behavioral intention. Low levels of risk perception and/or high
levels of benefit perception toward an object accelerate the attitudinal orientation of a
consumer and his/her behavior (Jarvenpaa, Tractinsky, & Vitale, 2000). Fishbein and
Ajzen (1975)’s theory of reasoned action (TRA) posits that an individual’s intended
behavior is determined by one’s attitude reflecting feelings of favorableness, as well as
one’s subjective norm referring the perceived social pressure or opinions of other groups
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important to an individual. However, studies found that college-age consumers tend to

feel little or no social pressure to comply with peer or other references (Belleau, Summers,
Xu, & Pinel, 2007). Additionally, if the product is relative new to market or the perceived
value of the product is not strongly formed yet (Roberts & Henderson, 2000), consumers
have received little or no promotion and pressure from others. Since this study is
examining the decision-making process at food-truck dining that is relatively new market
targeting millennial consumers’ behaviors who may not less feel social pressure from
others, the subjective norm was not included as a variable to affect behavior in this study.
The TRA has been applied to consumer decision-making for food and dining-out. For
example, the TRA was used to examine the role of perceived risk and attitude in
predicting consumers’ purchases of organic food (Michaelidou & Hassan, 2008; Saba &
Messina, 2003), consumers’ wine purchase decision (Lacey, Bruwer, & Li, 2009), and
consumers’ purchase of street food (Choi et al., 2013; Khongtong et al., 2016). The
relationship between perceived benefit/risk and consumers’ attitudes was supported by
several studies. For instance, Huang (1993) concluded that perceived risks of pesticide
usage significantly affect consumer attitude. It is confirmed that low risk perception
related to street food consumption affects consumers’ favorable attitude toward the food
purchase (Choi et al., 2013). Therefore, TRA and TPB models can explain the relations
between customers’ attitudes, beliefs and intentions towards buying food-truck foods and
services in this study.
Furthermore, an individual’s behavior is changed by her/his perceived risks, which
represent a potential barrier to behavior (Kim, Ferrin, et al., 2008). On the other hand,
perceived benefits lead to positive and/or rewarding result (Grubbs & Carter, 2002). Floyd,
Gibson, Pennington-Gray, and Thapa (2004) investigated the effect of perceived risk on
travelers’ intentions to visit the U.S. after the 9/11 event. Safety and social risk factors
negatively affected travel intentions. Choi et al. (2013) also found that consumers who had
perceived risks toward street food are less likely to purchase street foods. Moreover, the
study suggested that risk and benefit perception toward street food influence both a
consumer’s attitude and behavioral intention. The findings suggest that perceived risk
and benefit alter a person’s feelings, thereby influencing behavior.
In this sense, a Millennial’s decision to visit food-trucks is influenced by both per-
ceived risk and benefits of food-truck dining. While perceived benefits will incur favorable
attitude and visiting intention, the consumers who have a high level of perceived risk are
less willing to visit food-trucks. Thus, it is expected that perceived benefit/risk of food-
 JOURNAL OF FOODSERVICE BUSINESS RESEARCH 5

Figure 1. Hypothesized model.

truck dining impact the millennial’s attitude and behavioral intentions toward food-truck
dining consumption. Based on the literature, the following hypotheses are proposed and
the model is shown in Figure 1.
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H1a: Consumers’ perceived risks negatively affect attitudes toward food-trucks

H1b: Consumers’ perceived benefits positively affect attitudes toward food-trucks

H2a: Consumers’ perceived risks negatively affect purchasing intention at food-trucks

H2b: Consumers’ perceived benefits positively affect purchasing intention at food-trucks

H3: Consumers’ attitudes positively affect behavioral intention toward food-truck dining
experience

Research design and methodology

Sample and measurement
The study targets Millennials who were born between 1980 and 2000 (Richard &
Associates, 2011), and a convenience sample of students at a university in a Midwestern
United States city was invited to this study. The data for this study were collected through
self-administered questionnaires using the Qualtrics online-survey software. A total of 114
students completed the questionnaires, and useful responses were used for data analysis.
The survey included four parts: 1) perceived risks and benefits of food-truck dining
service, 2) customers’ attitude and behavioral intention to visit a food–truck, 3) previous
experience about food-truck dining, and 4) demographic data, including gender, age, and
household income.
A survey questionnaire related to consumers’ risk/benefit perceptions of dining at food-
trucks was developed by using relevant literature. Perceived risk of food-trucks was
measured with ten items either modified or drawn from the scale developed by
Chakravarty and Canet (1996), Tester, Yen, and Laraia (2010), and Yeung and Morris
(2001). Perceived benefits were measured with 11 questions related to taste, service,
convenience to eat, easy accessibility, menu variety, and pleasant and new experience
(Babin, Darden, & Griffin, 1994; Dawson & Canet, 1991; Ekanem, 1998; Taylor et al.,
2000). Six questions were asked about respondents’ attitude about food-truck dining
experience (Francis et al., 2004). Purchase behavioral intention had four items asking
the level of intention to purchase food from a food-truck (Francis et al., 2004). All items
 6 B. YOON AND Y. CHUNG

Table 1. Respondent characteristics (n = 114).

Variables Frequency (n) Percentage (%)
Gender a Male 39 33.9
Female 76 66.1
Age b 18–20 34 30.4
21–25 63 56.3
26–30 7 6.3
31–35 8 7.3
Ethnicity a Caucasian 95 82.6
Hispanic 4 3.5
Native American 5 4.3
African American 3 2.6
Asian 6 5.2
Other 2 1.7
Annual household income c Less than $20,000 42 36.8
$20,000-$39,999 18 15.8
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$40.000-$59,999 7 6.1
$60,000-$79,999 13 11.4
$80,000-$99,999 9 7.9
$1,000,000 or above 25 21.9
Past experience purchasing at food-trucks Yes 64 55.2
No 52 44.8
a
Missing data = 1
b
Missing data = 4
c
Missing data = 2

except for demographic questions in the survey are rated on a five-point scale from one
(strongly disagree) to five (strongly agree).

Characteristics of respondents
As shown in Table 1, the respondents of this study were comprised of 34% male and 66%
female college students. About 56.3% of the respondents were between the ages of 21 to
25, followed by the age groups 18 to 20 and 26 to 35, which accounted for approximately
30.4% and 14.6%, respectively. Most of the respondents were Caucasian (80%), and 40% of
respondents answered their annual household income level was less than $20,000. About
56% of the respondents had experience toward food-truck dining and 44% of the respon-
dents have no food-truck dining experience.

Reliability and validity of the measurements

Cronbach’s alpha was used to assess the reliability of measurement scales. Values of
Cronbach’s alpha greater than .70 were considered to be reliable (Nunnally, 1959). The
reliability coefficients for the scales (i.e., consumer attitude and purchase intention) were .95
and .96, respectively. Considering the minimal acceptable level of alpha coefficient (i.e., .70),
these values suggested that scales could be considered reliable and used for further analysis.
To assess construct validity of the measurements, convergent and discriminant validity
for the measurements were tested. To evaluate convergent validity, average variance
extracted (AVE) of each construct were used (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). AVE measures
the amount of variance captured by the construction relation to the amount of variance
attributable to measurement error. According to Fornell and Larcker (1981), AVE should
be higher than or equal to .50 to establish convergent validity. The results indicated, that
 JOURNAL OF FOODSERVICE BUSINESS RESEARCH 7

Table 2. Summary of Cronbach’s alpha and construct validity of the measurements.

Hygienic Hedonic value Environmental Convenience Purchase
risk benefit risk benefit Attitude intention
Hygienic risk 0.80
Hedonic value −0.39 0.72
benefit
Environmental risk 0.47 −0.15 0.80
Convenience −0.42 0.55 −0.24 0.76
benefit
Attitude −0.49 0.57 −0.28 0.47 0.86
Purchase intention −0.57 0.53 −0.37 0.43 0.70 0.93

the AVEs calculated for the constructs ranged from .71 to .93, which considered adequate
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to establish convergent validity (Table 1). To evaluate discriminant validity, Fornell and
Larcker (1981) suggested a comparison of squared correlation between each pair of
constructs against the minimum of the AVEs for these two constructs. Discriminant
validity is considered adequate,when (within each possible pairs of constructs) the squared
correlation is lower than the minimum of their AVEs (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Based on
this analysis, the discriminant validity of the constructs (AVE of attitude: .863 and AVE of
purchase intention: .931) appeared to be satisfactory (Table 2).

Data analysis
Descriptive statistics were used to identify millennials’ demographic information.
Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to examine the dimension of risk and benefit
perception toward food-truck dining. To examine the impact of each perceived risk/
benefit on consumer’s attitude and purchasing intention, two multiple regressions were
used with p < .05 as the criterion for statistical significance.

Results
Exploratory factor analysis for perceived risks and benefits toward food-truck
dining
Table 3 shows the results of exploratory factor analysis with the principal axis factoring
using promax rotation for the underlying dimensions of the perceived risk/benefit of food-
truck dining. Four variables with communality less than .30 were removed since the aim
of factor analysis is to explain the variance through the common factors (Child, 2006).
Moreover, one variable was deleted, because it has high level of cross-loading on two
factors (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007). It probably be related to the ambiguity inherent in
wording of the variable. Finally, four-factors were identified with 16 items. Four-factor
model explained 61.5% of the total variance. Items including improper food storage, not
fresh ingredients, unsanitary condition, and concern for food poisoning and poor food
quality loaded highly on the first factor which was named as hygienic risk. Five items
(such as escaping feeling from ordinary life, chance to taste ethnic food and authentic
cuisine, experiencing exotic place, and fun and unique feeling through food-truck dining)
are grouped and present hedonic benefit. Three items (i.e. not environmentally friendly,
food waste/water contamination, excessive use of disposables) were grouped together
 8 B. YOON AND Y. CHUNG

Table 3. Exploratory factor analysis of perceived risk/benefits toward food-truck service.

Factor labels Items Factor loadings Eigen value Variance explained (%)
Hygienic risk Improper food storage .890 5.727 33.494
Ingredients are not fresh .829
Poor food quality .809
Unsanitary condition .791
Food poisoning .716
Hedonic value benefit Feeling like escaping from ordinary life .872 2.737 14.678
Authentic cuisine .790
Ethnic food from all over the world .715
Exotic place .640
Fun and unique feeling .517
Environmental risk Not environmentally friendly .875 1.479 7.086
Food waste/water contamination .775
Excessive use of disposables .751
Convenience benefit Easy accessibility .994 1.344 6.240
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Eating convenience .719

Fast service .524

Table 4. Regression analysis for risks and benefits affecting consumer attitude.
Variable B Standardized beta t
(Constant) 4.240 71.535***
Hygienic risk −.209 −.257 −2.515*
Hedonic value benefit .288 .346 3.654***
Environmental risk −.064 −.077 −.842
Convenience benefit .085 .103 .297
Note. Adjusted R2 = .350; F = 15.927; significance F = .000
*p ≤ .05. ***p ≤ .001

under the factor named environmental risk. The last group was comprised of easy
accessibility, eating convenience, and fast service that present convenience benefit.

Effect of perceived risks and benefits on consumer’s attitude and purchasing

intention
Multiple regression analysis was used to explore the impact of each risk/benefit (i.e.,
hygienic risk, environmental risk, hedonic value and convenience benefit) on consumer’s
attitude and purchasing intention. The results indicated that 35% of variance in consumer
attitude toward food-truck dining experience was explained by the model (adjusted
R2 = .350). As Table 4 shows, hygienic risk has negatively significant impact on con-
sumer’s attitude toward food-truck dining, while a millennial’s perceived hedonic value
benefit positively affects his favorable food-truck-service attitude. However, environmental
risk and convenience benefit were not statistically significant. Results also indicated that
hedonic value benefit had the strongest impact on consumer’s attitude (standardized
β = .346). Thus, a consumer’s perceived risk (i.e., hygienic risk) was negatively related
to attitude toward food-trucks, while hedonic value was positively associated with the
consumer’s attitude, partially supporting H1a and H1b.
Multiple regression analysis was also conducted to analyze the impact of each risk/
benefit on consumers’ intention to purchase food at food-trucks (Table 5). The results
indicated that 35.7% of the variation in overall consumers’ purchasing intention for food
at food-trucks was explained by the model (adjusted R2 = .57). Multiple regression analysis
 JOURNAL OF FOODSERVICE BUSINESS RESEARCH 9

Table 5. Regression analysis for risks and benefits affecting consumer purchase
intention.
Variable B Standardized beta t
(Constant) 4.025 63.010***
Hygienic risk −.139 −.158 −1.550
Hedonic value benefit .381 .423 4.485***
Environmental risk −.176 −.195 −2.146*
Convenience benefit .033 .037 .374
Note. Adjusted R2 = .357; F = 16.403; significance F = .000
*p ≤ .05. ***p ≤ .001

indicated that hedonic value benefit and environmental risk had beta coefficients, which
are statistically significant. Hedonic value benefit (standardized β = .423) had the strongest
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impact on purchasing intention followed by environmental risk (standardized β = −.195).

Hedonic value benefit of food-truck dining had significant positive effect on purchasing
intention toward food-trucks, partially supporting H2b.
Simple regression analysis was conducted to identify the relationship between a con-
sumer’s attitude and his purchasing intention. The results indicated that 45.4% of the
variance in intention to adopt was explained by the model (adjusted R2 = .454). Attitude
had a significant positive association with young consumers’ purchasing intentions,
supporting H3.

Discussion and conclusion

The purpose of this study was to identify millennial consumers’ perceived risk/benefit
toward the food-truck dining experience, and to examine their effects on attitude and
purchasing behavior intention of food-truck service. Among many types of risks or
benefits in dining at a restaurant, the study found millennial consumers perceived two
types of risks (hygienic and environment) and two types of benefits (convenience and
hedonic value) in food-truck dining. Overall, the results of the study revealed that hygienic
risk, environmental risk, and hedonic value benefit were critical factors that affect a young
consumer’s perceived food-truck dining experience. The findings indicate that millennials
are concerned about improper food storage, ingredients that are not fresh, poor food
quality and food poisoning, and unsanitary conditions under the hygiene issue. They also
think that food-trucks could negatively impact the environment by creating food/water
waste and using many disposable products. Young consumer’s value food-truck dining by
hedonic value, which is determined by feeling like escaping from ordinary life, experience
about authentic cuisine and ethnic food, fun and unique feeling, and convenience deter-
mined by convenience of eating, easy accessibility and prompt service. The results of this
study are consistent with previous studies (Babin et al., 1994; Ryu, Han, & Jang, 2010)
indicating customers’ perceived hedonic and utilitarian values both were critical factors to
understand dining experiences.
The restaurant industry expects Millennials to emerge as a major group. This group,
comprised of about 75 million of Americans, dines out more frequently than any other age
group and is eager to find what they want and also has a willingness to spend to get it.
Thus, the study understanding millennials’ attitudes and what benefits can attract the
 10 B. YOON AND Y. CHUNG

young consumer’s toward food-truck dining experience would be valuable to the industry.
This study indicated that hygienic risk, environmental risk, and hedonic benefit were key
determinants of positive attitude and purchase intention. Perceived hedonic value benefit
was the most critical determinant of the consumer’s favorable attitude and purchasing
intention. This finding supports previous studies (Ha & Jang, 2010; Park, 2004; Ryu et al.,
2010) suggesting that hedonic values regarding dining experience positively influence
customers’ satisfaction and behavioral intentions. Millennial consumer’s are the driving
force for new dining culture and trends. This generation has new expectation for unique
dining experience and thinks that hedonic benefits are the most important, when eating
on a mobile platform. Eating a meal on the street would not mean that Western young
consumer’s have to sacrifice quality or healthy options any more, but that they can enjoy
unique food and experience.
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Since there is a strong relationship between a consumer’s perceived hedonic value of

food-truck service and attitude, marketers and food-truck owners should develop effective
marketing and operational strategies to increase the visits of existing food-truck diners
and attract potential consumers. This finding was consistent with the study that showing
college students mostly recognize the uniqueness among the shopping value that retailers
are working hard to achieve (Carpenter, Moore, & Fairhurst, 2005). Therefore, adding
authentic cues to atmospherics and menus would be an effective strategy to appeal to
young consumers. Additionally, food-truck operators need to consider emphasizing
hedonic components, such as decorating their exterior design with music and lighting,
to enhance pleasant and unique food-truck dining experience. These findings also suggest
that food-trucks may be a new experiential marketing format for marketing to consumer’s
who are looking for unique and hedonic dining experience.
The regression analyzes indicate that environmental risk affected intention to purchase,
but did not affect the attitude. The result implies no mediating effect of attitude. To test
the significance of a mediation effect, we used Sobel Test (Sobel 1982). The Sobel Test
revealed that, when the mediator (attitude) is included in a regression analysis model with
the environmental risk variable, the effect of the risk variable is not reduced and the effect
of the mediator does not remain significant. A possible explanation about no mediating
effect of attitude is that, when confronting sustainability and environmental issues, people
often have self-control or they feel forced not to behave in a certain way. As a result,
environmental risk affects individual behavior not to choose a product creating environ-
mental problems regardless of their attitudes or feelings towards food-trucks.
This study revealed that perception affected attitude and purchasing behavior, and
attitude predicted diners’ behavior intention towards food-trucks, supporting the theory of
reasoned action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). Attitude toward food-trucks was positively
associated with intentions to visit, try, and buy products from food-trucks. This finding
provides consistent and strong theoretical support,that how attitudes are developed, and
how they influence consumer behavior.
From a managerial perspective, this study stresses that food-truck operators and
marketers can attract young customer’s by increasing their perceived hedonic value of
food-truck dining through the marketing communication strategy. Food-truck owners
also need to strive to minimize perceived hygienic and environmental risks to attract
more demand for food-truck service. Presenting a certified safety badge or license,
offering food-safety training for their employees, and using environmentally friendly
 JOURNAL OF FOODSERVICE BUSINESS RESEARCH 11

products and fresh ingredients could help reduce consumers’ perceived risk. Thus,
food-truck operators and marketers should thoroughly understand the perception
(beliefs) that affect the attitude toward food-truck dining to help ensure patronage
intentions.

Limitations and future research

Despite the importance of a study of this type, this study has several limitations. First, the
data were collected from one university in the Midwest U.S., and the reader should be
cautious about generalizing the results to all millennial consumers. Second, this study did
not use structural equation modeling (SEM) mainly because of the small sample size.
Future research could use SEM or alternative analyzes. In addition, there might be other
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variables such as past food-truck dining experience, sociodemographic characteristics or

personality types that could be considered as moderating factors. Food-truck dining would
appeal differently to consumers according to their past dining experience, personal
characteristics (e.g., openness to new experience), or interest in cuisine. For example,
there might be differences among different groups (e.g., non-users, first-time user, and
repeat users) regarding the perception of food-truck dining, because prior experience
could increase or reduce consumers’ level of risk/benefits perception towards food-truck
dining. Examination of the difference among different segments of food-truck customers
could provide better understanding of food-truck dining and suggest different marketing
strategies for different group of consumers. Therefore, considering these factors may be
useful for understanding a millennial consumer’s attitude and behavioral intentions
toward food-truck dining.

Disclosure statement
The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and
writing of the article.

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