Is Awareness Enough to Shift Milk Choice?

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

This study examines whether awareness alone is sufficient to shift consumer preference from loose milk to pasteurized milk in Karachi, Pakistan. The research used a mixed-method design combining 80 consumer surveys, four in-depth interviews and two focus groups. The survey targeted consumers aged 18-45, with the original study focusing on lower- and upper-middle-income consumers. Quantitative analysis used independent-samples tests, correlations and chi-square testing, while qualitative evidence explored awareness, price, taste, availability, hygiene and nutrition. The results indicate that awareness by itself was not associated with switching intention. The reported association between awareness and pasteurized-milk consumption was weak and negative (r = -0.208), availability was essentially unrelated to switching intention (r = -0.007), and a chi-square test found no significant relationship between awareness and switching (p = .685). Qualitative evidence similarly showed that consumers' decisions reflected a combination of habitual consumption, affordability, taste, availability and perceived health or hygiene benefits. The study therefore suggests that information campaigns alone are unlikely to transform milk choice where economic, sensory and distribution barriers remain. Because the data were collected in 2015, the paper treats them as historical consumer-behavior evidence rather than as an estimate of current market prevalence.