Domestically produced food: Consumer perceptions of origin, safety and the issue of trust

Abstract

It is becoming increasingly difficult for the public to attempt to assess risks using traditional methods such as smell, taste or other physical attributes of food. The existence of extrinsic cues such as the country of origin (COO) of food can help to make food purchase decisions easier for consumers. However, the use of extrinsic cues depends heavily on the extent to which consumers trust such signals to be indicative of quality or safety, which in turn depends on the credibility behind that cue. This paper aims to examine consumers association of domestically produced food with increased food safety standards and the association of COO and food safety information with socio-demographics and other aspects of consumer psychology such as attitudes, risk perception and trust. Using an ordered probit model, domestic production is examined as an extrinsic cue for food safety by looking at the relationship with trust in food safety information provided by national food standards agencies (NFSAs) and other socio-demographic characteristics, based on nationally representative data from 2725 face-to-face interviews across five European countries. Results suggest that domestic production of food is an extrinsic cue for food safety and as consumers place increasing importance on food safety they are more interested in food produced in their own country. This, coupled with consumer trust in a strong, and independent national food standards agency, suggests the potential exists for the increased consumption of domestically produced foods.

Keywords:

• Origin of food
• consumer behaviour
• food safety
• trust

Notes

1. Please note that the aims of this paper are distinct from the aims of the TRUST project and this study purely makes use of the data collected in TRUST.

2. European Commission, Quality of Life Programme, Key Action 1—Food, Nutrition, and Health, Research Project “Food Risk Communication and Consumers’ Trust in the Food Supply Chain–TRUST” (contract no. QLK1-CT-2002-02343), www.trust.unifi.it

3. A detailed discussion of the ordered probit model is provided by Greene, 2003 (pp. 736–740).

4. A broader objective of the TRUST project was to explore the relationship between consumer reactions to a food safety incident and trust in information. However, questions exploring respondents’ evaluation of standard food safety cues were asked before mentioning any food safety incident.

5. The choice of independent variables from the TRUST survey for this study was based on the literature review above and on some qualitative data gathered from a set of 4 focus groups conducted in June 2005, which looked at consumer behaviour towards, and willingness to pay for local national and imported foods.

6. The predictive power of the model is higher than the frequency of the modal category both with seven categories (where the modal value is seven with a frequency of 28.9%) and for three (grouped) categories (where the modal value is three with a frequency of 71.2%). This means that the ordered model provides better predictions than assigning all values to the modal category. The significance of most of the marginal effects and the joint Chi-squared statistics (279.11) also suggests that the ordered probit specification is acceptable and informative.

7. Correlation was used to check that there was no relationship between ethics, age and education.