Trust in food safety in Russia, Denmark and Norway

Abstract

In this paper we argue that institutional conditions should be taken into consideration when consumers trust in food safety is analysed. Our survey results demonstrate that levels of trust in food safety varies considerably across our three selected countries: Russian consumers expressing the lowest level of trust, Norwegian consumers the highest and Danish consumers expressing levels of trust in food safety which were in between. We find empirical evidence in all countries that consumers trust in food safety is related to their evaluation of how their national food control authorities perform, as well as to what extend they trust market mechanisms to secure food quality. However, while trust in food safety in the Scandinavian countries is more likely to rest on trust in public food control, trust in food safety more often depend on trust in market mechanisms in the St. Petersburg region.

Keywords:

• Food safety
• trust
• Russia
• Denmark
• Norway

Notes

Lisbet Berg, Dr. Polit. in Sociology, University of Oslo 1997. Head of Research at National Institute for Consumer Research (SIFO), Oslo.

Elena Ganskau, PhD. in Sociology, St. Petersburg State University, 2001. Researcher at the St. Petersburg State University.

Bente Halkier, PhD. Sociology, Roskilde University 1998. Associate Professor at the Department of Communication, Journalism and Computer Science, Roskilde University Denmark.

Lotte Holm, M.Sc. and PhD. in Sociology, University of Roskilde 1991. Associate Professor, Department of Human Nutrition.

Unni Kjaernes, Cand.real in Nutrition, University of Oslo 1981. Senior Researcher at the National Institute for Coinsumer Research (SIFO), Oslo. Project coordinator for ‘Consumer Trust in Food’ (1992–94), funded by the European Commission.

Vera Minina, PhD in Economics, St. Petersburg State University 1984. Grand PhD in Sociology, St. Petersburg State University 1999. Professor, Faculty of Sociology, St. Petersburg State University. Editor-in-chief of Russian journal Personal-Mix.

Ludmila Voltchkova, Professor, Head of the Chair of Public Administration and Social Planning. PhD in Economics 1983. Doctor in Sociology 1994.

Thanks to the poll institutes: COMCON-SPb (St. Petersburg), Opinion (Oslo) and Gallup (Copenhagen).

It should be mentioned, however, that Norwegians do not appreciate farmed fish as much as wild fish. Almost one out of three thinks that farmed fish is not quite safe to eat (Berg 2001).

The index is constructed by adding the values on the six foods presented in Figure 2, where ‘trust’ gives 2, ‘uncertain’ gives 1 and ‘distrust’ gives 0.

Separate analyses of the Norwegian material, which contains more variables than this comparable material, show that this situation is about to change also in Norway: in 2001 younger people were more sceptical to eat meat than older people, while the opposite was true in 1999.

Only being a woman in Russia showed greater effect on trust in food.

This distinction is even more explicit in the multivariate analyses results.