Effect of profession on consumption of potato products in greater kolkata and nearby areas

Central Potato Research Institute Campus, Modipuram-250 110, Meerut, UP, IndiaAbstract: Monthly family expenditure on potato chips, alu bhujia and French fries over three points in time,viz., current, five years back and expected in next five years. Consumption expenditure on potatoprocessed products under organized and unorganized sectors was studied separately. Potato productsfrom organized sector were more popular with the service class while farmers and labour class preferredpotato products from unorganized sector. Consumption growth for potato chips was expected to be lowerthan that experienced in past, while French fries were expected to observe phenomenal growth of 74% overcoming five years.During last few decades, potato consumption pattern has become more diversified and complex. Efforts weremade to analyse such pattern in Shimla and Meerut (Dahiya et al., 1994 and Kumar et al., 2000). Similarly, Jameet al. (2001) and Rani and Ezekiel (2001) studied quality attributes and market share of processed potato productsin unorganized sector in north-western India. Present study attempts to analyse effect of family head’s professionon consumption pattern of potato products in greater Kolkata and its nearby areas. The survey was conductedduring 2005 in North 24 Pargana, Nadia and Hooghly districts of West Bengal. The respondents were selectedusing stratified random sampling. Sample was divided into service (including retired), business (including self-employed), farmers and labour (including under-employed) categories based upon profession of the head of thehousehold. Consumption of potato products processed by organized sector (big companies with popular brands)and unorganized sector (small processors with local or no brands) were separately studied. The expectedconsumption after five years was estimated based upon consumers’ opinion.Out of 94 respondents the majority comprised of service (42), business (22) and farming (20) class, whilelabour (10) was on the lower side (Table 1). The average monthly family income was the highest for service classand the lowest for labour class. Similar pattern was observed in case of monthly total food expenditure. However,the proportion of income spent on food went on decreasing as the income increased among different categoriesi.e. in accordance with the Engel’s Law (Schumpeter, 1954). In case of potato chips the monthly family expenditureranged from Rs 40.73 for service class to Rs 4 for labour class. Only service and business class respondentsconsumed French fries while farmer respondents didn’t eat alu bhujia.Table 1. Average income and expenditure pattern of sample households (Rs/ month/ family)