ATTITUDES AND REPURCHASE INTENTION OF CONSUMERS TOWARDS FUNCTIONAL FOODS IN HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM

Although the demand of functional foods is increasing rapidly, and Vietnam is considered as a much potential market for the development of functional food market. However, there are many unsolved problems remaining in functional foods market, and these problems have never ceased to draw public attention and provoke debates. Thus, the purpose of this research is to investigate the factors affecting to consumers’ attitude and how consumers’ attitude affecting to consumer’s repurchase intention. The research will be conducted based on the questionnaires’ results collect from people who have used functional foods in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Questionnaires will be spread to consumers by hands and online survey. There are 260 responses are valid. The results show that there are four factors that positively affect to consumers’ attitude. These are (1) Consumers’ knowledge, (2) Perceived role, (3) Trust, (4) Subjective norms. Moreover, the findings also show that when people have positive feelings about products, they will increase their intention to products. Research also finds that trust is a direct relationship with consumers’ repurchases intention. From this conclusion, the study gives some recommendations to increase consumers’ attitude towards functional foods as well as the repurchase intention. Int. J. Anal. Appl. 18 (2) (2020) 213 INTRODUCTION 1. Research problems Although the demand of functional foods is increasing rapidly and Vietnam is considered as a much potential market for the development of functional food market [1]. However, there are many unsolved problems remains in functional foods market and these problems have never ceased to draw public attention and provoke debates. The biggest problem for Vietnamese company is building trust in consumers toward functional foods (according to dantri website in 2017). In 2000, the number of Vietnamese people using functional food is only about 500,000, and they mostly live in big cities such as Ho Chi Minh city and Ha Noi. However, in 2017, this number rapidly increased up to 20 million people (above 21% of population). In which, only 20% people use domestic functional food product and the rest use foreign made products from South Korea, US, Japan, etc. (according to Vnexpress in 2018). The domestic products are dominated by foreign products. The first reason for this situation is that consumers in developing countries like Vietnam are often in favor of foreign goods rather than domestic goods ([2]; [3]; [4];[5]). Another reason is that advertising of functional foods exaggerates than the benefits for health they really are, and it breaks the trust of Vietnamese customer when they don’t receive the benefits as advertisements. Moreover, the reason also comes from the low level of knowledge and the unconsciousness about functional foods. This led to the serious outcomes such as Functional foods and dangers behind advertising, overusing functional food being in danger on recent newspapers (according to datviet in 2018). Besides, Vietnamese are often affected by advice from people around them such as their relatives or their friends and make decisions.Secondly, With the rapidly increasing of functional food demand, although Vietnamese authorities have formulated policies for developing domestic products and tightly controlling the quality of functional food in Vietnam, there exists the large quantity of fake and poor good quality products based on the incoherence of legal systems and policies. As a result, functional foods market lose consumers’ trust towards products ([6]; [7]) Therefore, understanding these problems,this research is carried out with the purpose of understanding profoundly into consumers’ behavior by examining the influence of perception factors to consumers’ attitude and how consumers’ attitude affecting to their repurchase intention as well as investigatingthe incentives behind their repurchase intention. Moreover, this research also recommends some solutions based on the results of research. It can Int. J. Anal. Appl. 18 (2) (2020) 214 be practical for Vietnamese enterprises and authorities to develop functional food market and attract customers. The research will be conducted in Ho Chi Minh City market and general functional foods. 2. Research objectives The purposes of this study are proposed as follow: ✓ Examine the influential factors on consumer attitude towards functional food in a rapid growing market ✓ Explore the impact of attitude on repurchase intention ✓ To understand the problems and challenges, propose solutions for improving consumers’ attitude and repurchase intention, increasing competitiveness of Vietnamese functional food products and supporting Vietnamese authorities in developing and managing the market 3. Research Questions With these purposes, the research are raised to achieve the research purposes ✓ What kind of factors influence consumers’ attitude toward functional foods? ✓ How does consumers’ attitude impact on consumers’ repurchase intention toward functional foods product? ✓ What are the recommendations to enhance the consumers’ attitude and repurchase intention toward the products? LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Conceptual model review This study is carried out to understand about consumers’ behaviors and how consumers attitude affecting to consumers’ repurchase intentionby adapting a model form the research” Consumer attitude and purchase intention towards organic food – A case study in China” conducted by Mingyan Yang, Sarah Al-Shaaban and Tram B. Nguyen. The research was undertaken in 2014 [8] in order to explore the factors affecting consumers’ attitude and the impact of consumers’ attitude on consumer’s purchase intention towards organic food. Int. J. Anal. Appl. 18 (2) (2020) 215 Figure 2.1 Research model ofMingyan Yang, Sarah Al-Shaaban and Tram B. Nguyen By adapting the Theory of Planned Behavior [9] which illustrated that “behavioral intention refers to an individual’s subjective likelihood of performing a certain behavior” and “intention can be related to attitude in some extent”, the model they studied including five factors “Health consciousness”, “Consumer Knowledge”, “Environmental Concern”, “Personal Norms” and Subjective Norms”, the mediating factor “Attitude” and the dependent variable “Purchase Intention”. The research examined that consumer knowledge; personal norms and health consciousness are the key important factors that influence to consumer’s attitude and purchase intention. Moreover, the findings also found that consumers have positive attitude towards functional foods will be more likely to purchase them ([2]; [10]; [1]). There are many researchers in Vietnam have conducted study to consumer’s acceptance and consumers’ purchase intention; however; there has not been any study about consumers’ repurchase intention and their attitude toward functional food, especially in Ho Chi Minh city ([11]; [12]; [13]; [14]). Besides, consumers’ attitude can be significantly different from countries to countries. Therefore, the study will based on this model and adjust to make it applicable in Vietnam market. 2. Research concepts 2.1 Consumers’ repurchase intention The concept of repurchase intention means the future intention to use good or service ([15]). According to Jackson’s points of view ([16]), “repurchase intention” like “consumer behavioral intention” that measure the tendency towards using rate of customers about such as continuing, Int. J. Anal. Appl. 18 (2) (2020) 216 increasing or decreasing the amount of good or services. The decision of reselecting the same goods and services are explained by the good experiences about products such as perceived product quality, price or trust they have been through. From consumer perspective, consumer attitude and commitment to purchase a certain product is the consequence of repurchase intention ([1]). In this research, repurchase intention towards functional foods is the likelihood that consumers will continue to buy functional foods in Ho Chi Minh city. 2.2 Consumers’ attitude Consumers’ attitude describes the consumers’ feeling which is negative or positive towards an object and activities ([17]). According to ([18]), attitude is defined as the emotion of people in evaluating an object or activities. According to ([19]), consumers’ attitude can make consumption behavior happen such as how frequently people go shop food. People who have more positive attitude have a tendency to buy more products ([20]). Besides basing on experiences, consumers’ attitude also comes from the expectations and beliefs about products ([9]; [20]; [21]). In the previous researches, theory of planned behavior (TPB) is often applied to examine the consumers’ attitude ([21]; [20]). H6: Consumers’ attitude has positive relationship to consumers’ repurchase intention 2.3 Consumer knowledge The biggest difference between developing functional foods and normal foods is the requirement of scientific evidences; therefore, the research process needs experts from many fields in order to have these evidences ([22]). In a quality research 1999, IFCF pointed out that knowledge and trust are the key motivation for buying and using or not using functional foods in diet. The higher levels of knowledge consumers have towards functional foods, the higher cognitive capacity and exact performance they have ([23]). Consumers can gain knowledge from various channels such as social media, social networks, health experts and advertisements. When they have high knowledge about functional foods, they can easily make right decisions to choose or refuse product. H1: There is a positive relationship between consumer knowledge and consumers’ attitude Int. J. Anal. Appl. 18 (2) (2020) 217 2.4 Price Ares et al. (2010) [24] conclude that high prices may affect consumers' intention to buy in two ways: reducing the intention to buy due to spending too much on the product, or positively affect purchasing intentio


Research problems
Although the demand of functional foods is increasing rapidly and Vietnam is considered as a much potential market for the development of functional food market [1].
However, there are many unsolved problems remains in functional foods market and these problems have never ceased to draw public attention and provoke debates. The biggest problem for Vietnamese company is building trust in consumers toward functional foods (according to dantri website in 2017).
In 2000, the number of Vietnamese people using functional food is only about 500,000, and they mostly live in big cities such as Ho Chi Minh city and Ha Noi. However, in 2017, this number rapidly increased up to 20 million people (above 21% of population). In which, only 20% people use domestic functional food product and the rest use foreign made products from South Korea, US, Japan, etc. (according to Vnexpress in 2018). The domestic products are dominated by foreign products. The first reason for this situation is that consumers in developing countries like Vietnam are often in favor of foreign goods rather than domestic goods ( [2]; [3]; [4]; [5]). Another reason is that advertising of functional foods exaggerates than the benefits for health they really are, and it breaks the trust of Vietnamese customer when they don't receive the benefits as advertisements. Moreover, the reason also comes from the low level of knowledge and the unconsciousness about functional foods. This led to the serious outcomes such as Functional foods and dangers behind advertising, overusing functional food being in danger on recent newspapers (according to datviet in 2018). Besides, Vietnamese are often affected by advice from people around them such as their relatives or their friends and make decisions.Secondly, With the rapidly increasing of functional food demand, although Vietnamese authorities have formulated policies for developing domestic products and tightly controlling the quality of functional food in Vietnam, there exists the large quantity of fake and poor good quality products based on the incoherence of legal systems and policies. As a result, functional foods market lose consumers' trust towards products ( [6]; [7]) Therefore, understanding these problems,this research is carried out with the purpose of understanding profoundly into consumers' behavior by examining the influence of perception factors to consumers' attitude and how consumers' attitude affecting to their repurchase intention as well as investigatingthe incentives behind their repurchase intention.
Moreover, this research also recommends some solutions based on the results of research. It can be practical for Vietnamese enterprises and authorities to develop functional food market and attract customers. The research will be conducted in Ho Chi Minh City market and general functional foods.

Research objectives
The purposes of this study are proposed as follow: ✓ Examine the influential factors on consumer attitude towards functional food in a rapid growing market ✓ Explore the impact of attitude on repurchase intention ✓ To understand the problems and challenges, propose solutions for improving consumers' attitude and repurchase intention, increasing competitiveness of Vietnamese functional food products and supporting Vietnamese authorities in developing and managing the market

Research Questions
With these purposes, the research are raised to achieve the research purposes ✓ What kind of factors influence consumers' attitude toward functional foods?
✓ How does consumers' attitude impact on consumers' repurchase intention toward functional foods product?
✓ What are the recommendations to enhance the consumers' attitude and repurchase intention toward the products?

Conceptual model review
This study is carried out to understand about consumers' behaviors and how consumers attitude affecting to consumers' repurchase intentionby adapting a model form the research" Consumer attitude and purchase intention towards organic food -A case study in China" conducted by Mingyan Yang, Sarah Al-Shaaban and Tram B. Nguyen. The research was undertaken in 2014 [8] in order to explore the factors affecting consumers' attitude and the impact of consumers' attitude on consumer's purchase intention towards organic food.

Figure 2.1 Research model ofMingyan Yang, Sarah Al-Shaaban and Tram B. Nguyen
By adapting the Theory of Planned Behavior [9] which illustrated that "behavioral intention refers to an individual's subjective likelihood of performing a certain behavior" and "intention can be related to attitude in some extent", the model they studied including five factors "Health consciousness", "Consumer Knowledge", "Environmental Concern", "Personal Norms" and Subjective Norms", the mediating factor "Attitude" and the dependent variable "Purchase Intention". The research examined that consumer knowledge; personal norms and health consciousness are the key important factors that influence to consumer's attitude and purchase intention. Moreover, the findings also found that consumers have positive attitude towards functional foods will be more likely to purchase them ( [2]; [10]; [1]).
There are many researchers in Vietnam have conducted study to consumer's acceptance and consumers' purchase intention; however; there has not been any study about consumers' repurchase intention and their attitude toward functional food, especially in Ho Chi Minh city ([11]; [12]; [13]; [14]). Besides, consumers' attitude can be significantly different from countries to countries. Therefore, the study will based on this model and adjust to make it applicable in Vietnam market.

Consumers' repurchase intention
The concept of repurchase intention means the future intention to use good or service ( [15]).
According to Jackson's points of view ( [16]), "repurchase intention" like "consumer behavioral intention" that measure the tendency towards using rate of customers about such as continuing, increasing or decreasing the amount of good or services. The decision of reselecting the same goods and services are explained by the good experiences about products such as perceived product quality, price or trust they have been through. From consumer perspective, consumer attitude and commitment to purchase a certain product is the consequence of repurchase intention ( [1]).
In this research, repurchase intention towards functional foods is the likelihood that consumers will continue to buy functional foods in Ho Chi Minh city.

Consumers' attitude
Consumers' attitude describes the consumers' feeling which is negative or positive towards an object and activities ( [17]). According to ([18]), attitude is defined as the emotion of people in evaluating an object or activities. According to ([19]), consumers' attitude can make consumption behavior happen such as how frequently people go shop food. People who have more positive attitude have a tendency to buy more products ( [20]). Besides basing on experiences, consumers' attitude also comes from the expectations and beliefs about products ([9]; [20]; [21]).
In the previous researches, theory of planned behavior (TPB) is often applied to examine the consumers' attitude ( [21]; [20]).

Consumer knowledge
The biggest difference between developing functional foods and normal foods is the requirement of scientific evidences; therefore, the research process needs experts from many fields in order to have these evidences ( [22]). In a quality research 1999, IFCF pointed out that knowledge and trust are the key motivation for buying and using or not using functional foods in diet. The higher levels of knowledge consumers have towards functional foods, the higher cognitive capacity and exact performance they have ( [23]). Consumers can gain knowledge from various channels such as social media, social networks, health experts and advertisements.
When they have high knowledge about functional foods, they can easily make right decisions to choose or refuse product.

Price
Ares et al. (2010) [24] conclude that high prices may affect consumers' intention to buy in two ways: reducing the intention to buy due to spending too much on the product, or positively affect purchasing intention because it creates better perception about product quality.
The research of Annunziata and Vecchio (2012) [25] demonstrates that different groups of customers have different ways of evaluate the importance of prices. There are many people think that functional foods with higher price must go with higher quality. With these consumers, they have high income and are willing to pay for healthier alternatives regardless of price. On the other hands, Verbeke (2005) [20] also indicates that one of the main barriers for consumers' attitude and intention relates to very high price. Several consumers prefer good quality functional foods with affordable price. They will consider wasting or saving before buying functional foods. Childs (1997) [26] concludes that price and perceived price are better predicted factors (compared to trust) for the purchase habit of functional foods in the future.
This leads the suggestion for this study to focus on perceived price as a determinant of acceptance and purchase.

Subjective norms
Subjective norms are defined as the perceived social pressure on to perform or not perform actions ( [9]).
Subjective norms are decisively factor that is widely applied to understand about human behavior ( [27]). It has been said that "although many people think of themselves as individuals, people, most of the time, look to others for guidance in how to behave" and they may feel "unwanted emotions" when not act like others ( [27]). In marketing sector, many researchers claim that Subjective norms are the key factor determine consumers' purchasing intention and ( [28], [29]). According to Shepherd, (1999) [30], choosing foods is influenced by many factors including subjective norms factors.
The previous researches proved the relationship between subjective norms (foods other people claim that I should eat) and the amount of food using ( [31]). According to Aarts and Dijksterhuis, (2003) [21], a special feature of these standard influences is that its impact seems unconscious, and people often deny that they are influenced by others.

Trust
As cited in Carmina and Carlos (2011, p.283), Moorman et al. (1993) [32] defined: "Trust as a willingness to rely on an exchange partner in whom one has confidence." Because of the awareness of the roles of foods for health, consumers believe functional foods play an important role for protecting and improving people's health ( [28]).
Citizens in developed countries increasingly have more responsibility for their health and they claim that food and diet have relationship with people's health ( [33]). According to the research of Niva (2007) [34], consumers are more health conscious, and they are willing to change their eating habits to have a better health.
If the perceived role of functional foods for health mainly includes general aspects about recognizing about the important of health, controlling and orientation behaviors, trust in the context of functional foods definitely relates to perceived benefits of functional foods for health ( [20]). Therefore, the hypothesis is proposed as follow:

Perceived role
Perceiving roles of functional foods for health plays an important part in affecting functional foods acceptance. In the previous research, there are various concepts about trust and roles of functional foods and these concepts come from the effect of themselves on health ( [35]), have consciousness about health requirements ( [36]). In the research "Functional Food Choices: Impacts of Trust and Health Beliefs" ( [31]). The author states that both trust and health perceived are the key factors affecting to consumer' attitude.

Research design
This research is conducted to test the feasible factors affecting to consumers' attitude towards functional foods and the relationship between attitude and repurchase intention. It will be based on the previous researches and theoretical frameworks in order to develop six hypotheses. This is the reason why deductive research method will be appropriate to be implemented in this case. Moreover, empirical data is collected by using survey questionnaire with the purpose of testing the existing theories and modifying mode. From this point of view, deductive approach completely satisfies this requirement.
With the purpose of collecting, analyzing and generalizing data, quantitative research will be implemented along with deductive research. Specifically, the quantitative approach is appropriate in this circumstance because the research intends to reach a large number of consumers in Ho Chi Minh City by survey questionnaires. Furthermore, the main objective of this research is to test the hypothesis and theoretical model based on the previous study.
Therefore, quantitative method is fulfilled the requirements.

Sample of research
The conceptual model has 7 variables, in which 5 variables are independent and 2 variables are dependent. According to ( [37]), the applicable sample size should be at least 150 and 200. With the limited financial ability and time period, the research will carry out 260 surveys

Data collection method
In this research, Primary data will be collected by giving online and offline survey to consumers from 10 th April 2019 to 24 th April 2019. With this method, it is the best way to reach a large amount of consumers using functional foods. In specified, questionnaires will be directly delivered to each consumer by hands at public place or by social media channel such as Facebook, Zalo and so on.

Questionnaire design
The surveys are spread out among consumers in Ho Chi Minh city by hands or by social media channel such as Facebook, Zalo and so on. There are two parts in the questionnaire; the first is designed to collect demographic information including job, age, gender, income. It will help researcher understand about the target object. The left part is created based on the factors affecting to consumers' attitude, consumer's attitude and repurchase intention. The questionnaires have 26 question designed from the theoretical concepts.
The demographic part of questionnaires is designed in ordinal, nominal scale. The second part which is designed in order to measure the theoretical concept based on Likert measurement scale where 1 represents for totally disagree and 5 stands for totally agree. All questions are closed question, easy to understand and designed in Vietnamese language. Respondents chose one of the existing alternatives without expressing new opinion. With this method, it will ensure the related between data and conceptual model

Data analysis method
Data will be analyzed by using SPSS and AMOS software. Analysis method is chosen according to study objectives; therefore, this research will conduct the following analysis

Income
The highest percentage of people who use functional foods have high income from 10-20 million and over 20 million. People have the income of "5 million to 10 million" as well as under 5 million is also occupied rather high percentage. The reason is that there has a huge amount of functional foods in market, so price level of functional foods also varies from low to high price to compete with other brands.
Occupation it can be seen that office staff occupies a highest percentage of 69.8%. They have stable income and may be suffered by many health problems because sitting for a long periods of timeevery day. Therefore, this may the reason why they use functional foods to protect their health and avoid health disease. Next are the retirees who are suffered from many health diseases because of aging. Labor is the group has lowest percentage and take a very small respondents of 5.3%

CFA test
After conducting EFA, CFA is the next step which is employed to examine the measurement model before testing the relationship between factors by using the simultaneous equation model.
In specific, CFA is aimed to test the consistence degree of constructional measures and the researchers' understanding of that construct.
In CFA test, p-value, convergent validity, discriminant validity and reliability should be taken into account to verify the conformity of model  As we can see in the Modification indices above, there is a very high modification index between e20 and e21 as well as e8 and e9. Therefore, the new covariance should be drawn between these errors.
After drawing the new covariance, the model fit results is improved significantly. The GFI value increases to 0.894, the RMSEA decrease to 0.037(<0.05) and the Chi-square also decreases to 1.345. These indices are sufficient to satisfy with the conditions in the table above. In conclusion, the model fit of CFA is highly adaptable the data

Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)
SEM is conducted with the purpose of testing the hypothesis relationships in the research model attitude with the p -value of less than 0.05. In addition, the relationship between consumer's attitude and consumers' repurchase intention is also significant with the p-value of *** (less than 0.05). Therefore, there only has the hypothesis H2 will be rejected from the model  Attitude <---Subjective_norms 1 Attitude <---Product_knowledge -1 Attitude <---Perceived_role 0 Repurchase_Intention <---Attitude -1.66667 The CR value is less than 1.96, the research model is trustworthy

H1
There is a positive relationship between consumer knowledge and consumers' attitude Accept

H2
There is a positive relationship between Price and consumers' attitude Reject

H3
There is a positive relationship between Subjective norms and Consumers' attitude Accept

H4
There is a positive relationship between Trust and Consumers' attitude Accept

H5
There is a positive relationship between Perceived role and Consumers' attitude Accept

H6
Consumers' attitude has positive relationship to consumers' repurchase intention Accept

Consumer knowledge
Subjective Norms Perceived role Trust

Consumers'
Repurchase intention CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Discussion of the findings
The results of this research aimed to respond to research's question put in the first chapter. The findings will be discussed and compared with the previous studies which are stated in the literature review part as following

What kind of factors influence consumers' attitude toward functional foods?
In the research, there are five factors are proposed for the impacts on consumer's attitude.
However, after the analysis process, the results are shown as follow: (1) Subjective norms: in this research, subjective norms positively influence to consumers' attitude towards functional foods and it matches with the Theory of Reason Action ( [38]). This theory claims that purchase intention is the outcomes of consumers' attitude towards a product or service and there is a close link between consumer's attitude and subjective norms. It is easy to understand in Asia culture, especially Vietnamese culture because Asian consumers often make decisions based on the opinion of other people and response to what society expected to them more than choosing products based on their individual preferences.
Therefore, people will have positive attitude towards functional foods when people around them such as relatives and friends highly appreciate the benefits of functional foods and recommends them use (2) Trust: in this research, trust has profound influence on consumers' attitude and it is totally satisfied with the exploration of previous research such as the "Conceptual model of consumers' willingness to eat functional food" ( [39]). This paper states that trust relates to benefit perceived from using functional foods, and it is the strongest factors affecting to consumers' willingness to buy these foods.

However, it is inconsistent with the study "Functional Food Choices: Impacts of Trust and Health
Beliefs ( [31]) about the level of influence on consumers' attitude. In this study, authors emphasize that perceived role is carried heavier weight than trust. However, in this research trust are weighted more heavily than perceived role among the factors affecting to consumers' attitude. The reason is that there are many functional foods are produced in Vietnam have ingredients from natural ingredients, so the effects of these functional foods may need more time to exert effects on consumers' health. Although these natural products need longer time to exert effects, they are totally safe for people. Therefore, with people who prefer natural -origin ingredients will have positive attitude based on their trust towards these products.
(3) Consumer knowledge: this factor is proposed based on the study "Consumer acceptance of about a kind of functional foods, they will consider about these factors and make decision rather than its price. Therefore,price of functional foods doesn't play an important role in consumers' attitude.

How does consumers' attitude impact on consumers' repurchase intention toward functional
foods product?
Consumers' attitude greatly impact on consumers' behavior based on the Theory of Planned behavior ( [9]). From the research process, the author states that the consumers' behaviors towards a product are the consequence of consumers' attitude to this product.
Therefore, this research based on this theory andinvestigate the relationship between consumers' attitude and repurchase intention. There are many previous research examine the relationship between consumers' attitude and purchase intention. For instance, the research "Consumer attitude and purchase intention towards organic food -A case study

Build consumers' trust by completing the legal framework for manufacturing and trading functional
foods. Nowadays, one of the biggest challenges of the functional food industry is the lack of a clearly legal framework for production and trading, quality standards as well as how to manage and punish illegal activities. More and more negative phenomena with increasing levels are happening in the functional food market such as inaccurate or exaggerated information in the packaging, products that have not been examined and recognized by authorities, over advertising, counterfeit goods. This leads to lose consumers' trust towards functional foods.
Consequently, this situation has seriously affected to the development of potential functional foods market in Vietnam. Therefore, businesses operating in this area need to coordinate with the authorities to develop legal system, standards, regulations and management regulations to protect their rights and benefits of businesses, step by step creating a solid foundation to maintain and rebuild consumers' trust. This is not only a right but also an obligation of businesses to supply safe and beneficial products for consumers Enhance consumer awareness by emphasizing the message "Functional food is a nutritious food ". Not only experts like doctors but also consumers are increasingly aware of the close relationship between nutrition and health status ( [29]). In order to meet the necessary nutrient demand, as well as provide nutrients to enhance health and prevent disease, besides normal foods, functional foods can be a good choice for bringing convenience and efficiency to consumers, especially those who are busy and pressured. Therefore, businesses need to send a clear message in their communication plan that functional food is a kind of food with added, enhanced nutrients to provide essential nutrients, strengthen resistance, and reduce the risk of disease.
Developing long-term plans aimed at introducing functional food to improve consumer knowledge.
Knowledge of functional foods also has a significant impact on consumer acceptance. The more consumers understand about functional components as well as the effects of those components on health, the more they are likely to use functional foods. Therefore, businesses need to develop specific plans to spread the knowledge of functional foods to consumers. The implementation of the plan needs to be flexible, diverse, regular, easy to understand, attractive, abundant and also need to coordinate with other ways to improve knowledge of consumers by organizing workshop, TV programs with the participants of doctors or nutritionist, contest about nutrition.

Limitations
The first limitation of the research is the research sample. The questionnaires mainly are spread