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http://dx.doi.org/10.7466/JKHMA.2013.31.4.015

A Qualitative Study on Consumers' Perceptions of Food Safety Risk Factors  

Yoon, YeoYm (Dept. of Consumer Studies, The Catholic Univ. of Korea)
Kim, Kyungja (Dept. of Consumer Studies, The Catholic Univ. of Korea)
Publication Information
Journal of Families and Better Life / v.31, no.4, 2013 , pp. 15-31 More about this Journal
Abstract
Consumers are quite worried about food safety because food is one of the most important necessities in everyday life. Many studies have been conducted regarding the food safety issues, however, most researches have focused only on a limited range of risk factors and used only quantitative survey methods. The purpose of this study was to investigate consumers' perceptions of the risky components of food safety and how the perceptions have been formed. For this study in-depth interviews were conducted. For the interviewees, nine housewives, who are in their 30s to 50s, were selected taking into consideration their age, education level, number of children, and employment status. Results showed that the risk factors many consumers worried about were agricultural pesticides, MSG, food additives, GMO, Mad Cow Disease, preservatives, and growth hormones, etc. Consumers were worried about the risk of the retail process the most because they thought it was not informed and controlled well. Consumers tend to worry much more when the risks are involuntary, uncontrollable, unreliable, and have a gradual negative effect. Some of the food safety-oriented behaviors of consumers were also investigated.
Keywords
food safety; food safety risk factor; consumers' perceptions; food safety-oriented behavior; qualitative study;
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Times Cited By KSCI : 6  (Citation Analysis)
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