Relationship between HMR Selection Attributes and Silver Lifestyle Types
Authors:   Asia-Europe Perspective Association, Ahn Ok-Kyung , Kim Sook-Eung 
Published: June 2018

The population change of Korea has entered the aged society one year faster than the expectation, which is a considerably serious situation. Also, in the single-person households in each age group, the elderly single-person household showed the biggest increase in the whole age groups. It held 32.9% of the whole elderly households, and the rate of their participation in economic activity was 56.2%(2017). Thus, companies should pay more attention to this newly-rising market. Meanwhile, owing to the advent of the 4th industrial revolution era, living equipment could be easily operated even outside of home with the use of IoT. Men do not have to drive a car anymore because autonomous vehicles have been realized in reality. The supply of simplicity and convenience of these consumers has also changed the food market. The social structure such as aging, an increase in single-person households, five-day school week, and women’s economic activities has accelerated the change of the food market to form a new food market called HMR(Home Meal Replacement). According to the processed food market analysis report(2017)published by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs(MAFRA) and the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation(aT), the size of domestic HMR market will exceed 3 trillion won. Therefore, such a social condition has brought about the increase of the elderly population in food market. However, relevant companies currently have few information about this market and insufficient knowledge about how to approach it. Thus, this study aimed to understand the selection attributes of HMR in accordance with the lifestyle type of elderly group rising as a new consumer group of HMR market because of the improvement of economic power and the increase of elderly single-person household or elderly married-couple household caused by the change in social structure.
In the results, out of lifestyle types, the self-faithful oriented type showed the high tendency of simplicity-pursuit(26%) attribute, which was influenced by intake convenience, hard-cooking food, reduction of cooking process, preferred menu, ease of guest reception, recommendation by people, and change in dietary life. As the convenience oriented type pursues wellbeing(16.7%) with high preference for wellbeing, it would be necessary to have strategies to reinforce the high-quality and well-being concept of HMR like marking the country of origin and the use of environment-friendly ingredients, and the emphasis of nutritional functions on the package. As the family oriented type showed the high tendency of brand-pursuit(10.9%) for HMR, this attribute showing the intention to pay more money for premier products had effects on the purchase. In the results of analyzing the differences in the selection attributes of HMR between group of people younger than 65 including baby boomers and group of people in their 65 or up, the purchase of the group of people younger than 65 including baby boomers was much influenced by attributes like‘freshness of food’, ‘preference for good products even if they are expensive’, ‘diversification of menu’, ‘shop atmosphere’, ‘preference for products with great corporate image’, and ‘high-quality of shop’. In other words, it might reflect the characteristics of this group equipped with active and reasonable consumption life. In summary, there were differences in the demographic characteristics and the selection attributes of HMR in accordance with the lifestyle type of elderly group. Because the selection attributes of HMR are different between group of people younger than 65 including baby boomers and group of people in their 65 or up, the markets are different to each other, so that it would be necessary to develop products suitable for each segmentalized market. Therefore, this study aimed to provide basic data to HMR-related companies for the efficient development of new products and the establishment o