Food Retailing in Malaysia: a Study of Supermarket Use in Peninsular Malaysia a Thesis Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Business and Management, Univers)ty of Stirling by Khalifah

FOOD RETAILING IN MALAYSIA: A STUDY OF SUPERMARKET USE IN PENINSULAR MALAYSIA. This study examines the extent and patterns of supermarket use in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia and the town of Alor Star, a small town in the northern part of Peninsular Malaysia. A total of 436 household heads were interviewed for the study. Although the supermarket was first introduced in Malaysia in 1964, the study revealed that the adoption of supermarkets among respondents was still low. Even in the high income residential areas, the percentage of respondents that could be classified as heavy users was less than 50%. However, the percentage of heavy users was found to be significantly higher in high and middle income residential areas than that of low income residential areas. The study aJso showed that there were different patterns of food shopping behaviour among respondents. Perishable food is commonly bought from wet-markets, staple food is normally purchased from neighbourhood grocery stores while processed food is mainly bought from supermarkets. Log-linear analysis showed that car-ownership has the strongest influence on the extent of supermarket use. Among the three major ethnic groups the Chinese were found to have the strongest tendency to patronize supermarkets. On the other hand the Malays