Jeou-Shyan, 2011) and ‘traditional agro-food’ (Iglesias et al., 2003). Consequently, the interval of characteristics of traditional food becomes wider and leads to the difficulty in defining the true concept. On top of that, different individuals have dissimilar preferences and motivations toward choices in consumption of traditional food. Essentially, traditional food is such an important medium in order to acknowledge the country’s image, culture, locality and heritage throughout the world. Thus, there is a need for citizens and food industries to maintain and enhance the traditional food industry to sustain them in the global market. As Gustafsson et al. (2005) interpreted traditional food as a product related with a region and lying between cultural heritage and food production which portrayed a contemporary expression. Brassiere (1998) also reviewed individual who eat traditional food can built nutritional psycho-sensorial of the food, personify the nature, identity and emblematically integrate the culture. Long time ago, traditional food only been commercialized in small scale and includes certain places only. Lack of knowledge, technology and interest especially from food industries caused the traditional food market cannot sustain because it needs to compete with the variety of convenience foods and foreign foods in the market. According to Claret et al. (2010), it is inspected in many countries, traditional or local food production mostly realized by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Thus, it is proven in the previous study that before this time traditional food has limited commercialization in the market. Even so, traditional food trend and consumption are seemed to change due to the globalization world with vast information access, closer market, change of consumer lifestyle and food preferences and later drives producers to search for innovative products (Erdogan and Mevhibe, 2010). In the same way, Alcock (1995); and Iglesias et al. (2003) stressed today there is high attention towards traditional food due to food trend and demand. Meanwhile, Claret et al. (2010) highlighted there are not only producers, industries and government that have increased interest of traditional food but also the retailers and consumers. From the consumer’s outlook, the concern is spawned through the positive product images and value whereby it could give high contentment for them (Iglesias et al., 2003). Besides that, Abdul et al. (2011) suggested processing of traditional food is need to be purified according to societal needs. Nevertheless, producers at the same time must consider the originality of the traditional food and not to destroy the authenticity value so that consumer’s appreciation towards the product will be increased. Therefore, preservation of traditional food is needed as it is an important element of culture and heritage (Erdogan and Mevhibe, 2010) as well as it holds tight meanings and successfully emerged the national culinary image of a country (Chen-Tsang and Jeou-Shyan, 2011). 2.3 Consumer Behavior towards Traditional Food Understanding of consumer behavior and perception towards traditional food is crucial in order to guide strategic and policy decisions as well as assist those products in marketing (Kuznesof et al. 1997). From a profound study of consumer behavior of traditional agro-food product by
Iglesias et al. (2003), there is a strong positive relationship between individual’s attitude and quality perceptions toward traditional food. It is proven in the study that individual who has a favorable tendency toward traditional food product pose higher perceptions in each quality element of the product. The authors also stressed that quality aspect relates to organoleptic characteristics of the product, symbolic connotation from the product as well as adoption of traditional production technique should be concerned in order to raise perceived image quality of traditional food. Besides that, it is important for local food producers to be aware of all of these to ensure they are not just providing food but in time together with symbolic benefits such as shows the identity and unique value of the local food. Although from the study, it is found that consumer satisfaction is dependent so much from functional dimension of food quality, but it is essential to bear in mind that characteristics of food actually could give indirect influence on satisfaction of the consumers. Last but not least, definition of traditional food is exactly not fixed to one point only. It might be the different concept for different group of peoples. Furthermore, the concept of traditional food might depends on individual who might overview the elements in traditional food differently as consumer’s perception is a subjective matter and it regularly fluctuates over time (Claret et al., 2003). 2.4 Definition of Authenticity
There are about four required dimensions so as to classify the concept of traditional food: (a) the food produced must carry out the traditional method of processing; (b) show the authentic value of the food and link together the ingredients, recipe, origin of the raw materials and production process; (c) the food must be already available in the market starting during the ancient time either been commercialized in retail stores or restaurants; and (d) the product should have its own originality and valuable in culture and gastronomic heritage on the place where it is produced (Claret et al., 2003). From the study, the authors also highlighted some important elements to define the concept of traditional food such as authenticity of the product, locality, food has been consumed from ancient time, food for occasions, events and season, and others. As the result, there is a strong positive contribution of authentic characters in the definition of traditional food. The original term of authenticity means realness and originality of a product or thing (Molleda, 2011). As Malaysians are multiracial, there are many authentic foods which come from every region in the country. Those popular authentic foods have shown a unique cultural heritage of Malaysia and its help much in food industry. Malaysia is turning out to be a place for tourists to search authentic food experiences (Abdul et al., 2011). Ab Karim and Chi (2010) stressed that authentic food can trigger an individual’s desire to visit the specific travel destinations. Additionally, previous studies stated that there is a positive relationship between authenticity and individual experience. Jeroen and Louise (2008) justified that distinction arises between experiencing authenticity and authentic experience.
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