A bias in measuring consumer responses towards food safety issues due to imperfect substitution between foods

Abstract

This study attempts to show that observed consumption change may not correctly depict consumer opinions and responses towards food safety issues due to the lack of suitable substitutes for foods with controversial safety. If there is no suitable alternative for consumers to alter their eating habits, consumers may not change consumption patterns, although they feel that consuming problem foods is risky. This study provides empirical evidence of this phenomenon using a consumer survey regarding the 2010–2011 foot and mouth disease outbreak in South Korea. The results show that the ratio of respondents who did not cease consumption of the implicated products due to lack of a suitable substitute was sizeable. This suggests that when we utilize observed consumption data, we may underestimate consumer responses to food safety issues.

Keywords:

• survey
• consumer response
• observed consumption data
• food safety

JEL Classification:

• C42
• C80

Notes

¹ The name of the company is the World Survey, located in Daejeon, South Korea, http://www.wsurvey.net.

² For information regarding South Korean consumers’ responses towards the two outbreaks, refer, e.g., Jin (2008).

³ This specifically pertains to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan, following the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011.