Consumer Adoption of an Integrated Healthy Meal-Planning and Delivery Platform in a Partially Served Market: Evidence from Region I, Philippines
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.67903/ijroms0369Keywords:
Behavioral Intention, Healthy Meal Delivery, Technology Acceptance Model, Underserved Markets, Willingness to PayAbstract
Diet-related non-communicable disease is rising sharply in the Philippines, yet the two digital responses to it — meal-planning applications and meal-delivery services — remain separate, and integrated provision is largely confined to Metro Manila. Region I, the Ilocos Region, is not without healthy meal services, but those operating there take a single inflexible form: fixed diet plans supplied by delivery, concentrated in two of the region's four provinces, with no planning layer the user controls and no choice of fulfillment method. This study determined the intention of a sample of consumers in the region to adopt an integrated platform combining user-controlled meal planning with flexible fulfillment, and identified the factors associated with that intention. A descriptive-correlational design was employed. A researcher-made questionnaire anchored in the Technology Acceptance Model and extended with three consumer-context constructs was administered online to 50 purposively sampled adults aged 25 to 65 residing in the region's four provinces, each of whom evaluated a described and previewed platform concept. Data were analyzed using frequency, percentage, weighted mean, Pearson correlation with Spearman confirmation, and thematic analysis. Intention to adopt was favorable (WM = 3.83). Four factors fell within the Agree band, while willingness to pay was the only factor rated Neutral. All five were positively and significantly associated with intention to adopt, and all five null hypotheses were rejected. Sustainability was the highest-rated factor but the weakest correlate; cost was the lowest-rated factor, among the strongest correlates, and the dominant unprompted concern. Because the sample was purposive, these findings characterize the respondents studied and not regional demand. They indicate that such a platform's viability rests less on persuasion than on whether it can be priced inside a food budget of roughly sixty-five pesos per person per day, which makes affordability a design constraint, not a marketing problem.
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