Food safety: building consumer trust in livestock farmers for potential purchase behaviour

Abstract

PurposeFood safety is an important issue facing consumers, the food industry and the government. Since consumers cannot themselves easily assess food safety risks, their perception of food safety is, in part, a matter of trust in the food chain. This study seeks to focus on livestock farmers and to investigate the causal relationship between the factors that determine consumer trust, regarding food safety and in turn their purchase likelihood.Design/methodology/approachBy integrating theories developed in several disciplines, six factors, namely: providing information, competence, integrity, benevolence, credibility, and reliability were adopted for this study. The conceptual model was tested with a sample of 194 individuals in the form of a structural equation model using LISREL 8.30.FindingsThe research confirms that livestock farmers could draw benefit from strategies to increase their trustworthiness through provision of information, show their benevolence and integrity to consumers, and in turn positively influence consumers' purchasing decision.Practical implicationsLivestock farmers should understand more specifically what consumers want to know and provide accurate and reliable information.Originality/valueThis exploratory study provides a useful insight into the potential benefit from trust building that could be derived by livestock farmers, food safety regulators and the food supply chain as a whole, as well as the ways in which this might be achieved.

Islamic Bank Service Quality and Trust: Study on Islamic Bank in Makassar Indonesia

“…Result of this research was different from research of Yee et al (2005) who found antecedents trust was reliability of their research on livestock farmers in the United Kingdom. However result of this study supported research done by Yee et al (2005) and Gill et al (2006), who reported that consumer trust was not affected by reliability characteristics of insurance and bank services.…”

“…However result of this study supported research done by Yee et al (2005) and Gill et al (2006), who reported that consumer trust was not affected by reliability characteristics of insurance and bank services. Gill et al, (2006) also found that the reliability was failure to be the antecedent of trust in service characteristics associated with the company's business.…”

“…In addition, it was found that facilities provided by the bank have not been able to help customers in their business. Yee et al (2005) emphasized that reliability could improve consumer trust if the company was able to provide accurate information, shows their virtues and credibility to the customers which in turn would affect positively to consumer purchasing decisions.…”

A Matter of Trust: How Trust Influence Organic Consumption

“…In the literature it is found that consumers generally link organic foods to increased food safety in terms of an absence of GMOs and pesticide residues and to a lower degrees absence of artificial additives and preservatives (Yee, Yeung, & Morris, 2005;Canavari, Bazzani, Spadoni, & Regazzi, 2002;Honkanen, Verplanken, & Olsen, 2006), but the effect of food safety concern on the purchase of organic foods are mixed (Michaelidou & Hassan, 2008). In light of Michaelidou and Hassan's (2008) finding that concern about food safety issues are positively correlated with a positive attitude towards organic, but negatively correlated with purchase intentions, our results indicates that the effect of absence of GMOs and pesticide residues primarily works through confidence in the organic label.…”

Pathways to increase consumer trust in meat as a safe and wholesome food

“…However, consumer trust will not be achieved unless there is increased effort to communicate risk (Frewer et al, 2005). To achieve this, the removal of information asymmetry through the provision of more information is often believed to be the most logic solution (Kola & Latvala, 2003;Yee, Yeung, & Morris, 2005). However, effective communication has to take into account differences among consumers' concerns.…”