Consumer Food Safety 9781845444266, 9781845444259

Citation preview

bfj cover (i).qxd

06/07/2005

13:04

Page 1

ISBN 1-84544-425-6

ISSN 0007-070X

Volume 107 Number 7 2005

British Food Journal An international multi-disciplinary journal for the dissemination of food-related research Consumer food safety

www.emeraldinsight.com

British Food Journal

ISSN 0007-070X Volume 107 Number 7 2005

Consumer food safety Editor Professor Chris Griffith

Access this journal online __________________________ 439 Editorial advisory board ___________________________ 440 Consumer food safety knowledge: segmentation of Irish home food preparers based on food safety knowledge and practice Jean Kennedy, Valerie Jackson, Cathal Cowan, Ian Blair, David McDowell and Declan Bolton_______________________________________________

441

Bacterial contamination of domestic kitchens over a 24-hour period I.W. Haysom and A.K. Sharp _____________________________________

453

Consumer perceptions of food safety education sources: implications for effective strategy development Elizabeth C. Redmond and Christopher J. Griffith______________________

467

Factors influencing the efficacy of consumer food safety communication Elizabeth C. Redmond and Christopher J. Griffith______________________

Access this journal electronically The current and past volumes of this journal are available at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/0007-070X.htm You can also search more than 100 additional Emerald journals in Emerald Fulltext (www.emeraldinsight.com/ft) and Emerald Management Xtra (www.emeraldinsight.com/emx) See page following contents for full details of what your access includes.

484

CONTENTS

CONTENTS continued

Understanding consumer perception of food quality: the cases of shrimps and cheese Torben Hansen _________________________________________________

500

RESEARCH NOTE Food storage and disposal: consumer practices and knowledge M.J. Terpstra, L.P.A. Steenbekkers, N.C.M. de Maertelaere and S. Nijhuis__

526

Book reviews______________________________________ 534

www.emeraldinsight.com/bfj.htm As a subscriber to this journal, you can benefit from instant, electronic access to this title via Emerald Fulltext and Emerald Management Xtra. Your access includes a variety of features that increase the value of your journal subscription.

Additional complimentary services available

How to access this journal electronically

E-mail alert services These services allow you to be kept up to date with the latest additions to the journal via e-mail, as soon as new material enters the database. Further information about the services available can be found at www.emeraldinsight.com/alerts

To benefit from electronic access to this journal you first need to register via the internet. Registration is simple and full instructions are available online at www.emeraldinsight.com/admin Once registration is completed, your institution will have instant access to all articles through the journal’s Table of Contents page at www.emeraldinsight.com/0007-070X.htm More information about the journal is also available at www.emeraldinsight.com/ bfj.htm Our liberal institution-wide licence allows everyone within your institution to access your journal electronically, making your subscription more cost-effective. Our web site has been designed to provide you with a comprehensive, simple system that needs only minimum administration. Access is available via IP authentication or username and password.

Your access includes a variety of features that add to the functionality and value of your journal subscription:

Research register A web-based research forum that provides insider information on research activity world-wide located at www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister You can also register your research activity here. User services Comprehensive librarian and user toolkits have been created to help you get the most from your journal subscription. For further information about what is available visit www.emeraldinsight.com/usagetoolkit

Key features of Emerald electronic journals Automatic permission to make up to 25 copies of individual articles This facility can be used for training purposes, course notes, seminars etc. This only applies to articles of which Emerald owns copyright. For further details visit www.emeraldinsight.com/ copyright Online publishing and archiving As well as current volumes of the journal, you can also gain access to past volumes on the internet via Emerald Fulltext and Emerald Management Xtra. You can browse or search these databases for relevant articles. Non-article content Material in our journals such as product information, industry trends, company news, conferences, etc. is available online and can be accessed by users. Reference linking Direct links from the journal article references to abstracts of the most influential articles cited. Where possible, this link is to the full text of the article. E-mail an article Allows users to e-mail links to relevant and interesting articles to another computer for later use, reference or printing purposes. Emerald structured abstracts New for 2005, Emerald structured abstracts provide consistent, clear and informative summaries of the content of the articles, allowing faster evaluation of papers.

Choice of access Electronic access to this journal is available via a number of channels. Our web site www.emeraldinsight.com is the recommended means of electronic access, as it provides fully searchable and value added access to the complete content of the journal. However, you can also access and search the article content of this journal through the following journal delivery services: EBSCOHost Electronic Journals Service ejournals.ebsco.com Huber E-Journals e-journals.hanshuber.com/english/index.htm Informatics J-Gate www.j-gate.informindia.co.in Ingenta www.ingenta.com Minerva Electronic Online Services www.minerva.at OCLC FirstSearch www.oclc.org/firstsearch SilverLinker www.ovid.com SwetsWise www.swetswise.com TDnet www.tdnet.com

Emerald Customer Support For customer support and technical help contact: E-mail [email protected] Web www.emeraldinsight.com/customercharter Tel +44 (0) 1274 785278 Fax +44 (0) 1274 785204

BFJ 107,7

440

British Food Journal Vol. 107 No. 7, 2005 p. 440 # Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0007-070X

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Paul Allen Lewes, East Sussex, UK Professor Tony Andrews Bramley, Nr Basingstoke, UK Mary Barasi Head of Centre, Nutrition and Dietetics, School of Health and Social Sciences, UWIC, Cardiff, UK Dr Alan Beardsworth Lecturer in Sociology, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK Dr Michael Bourlakis School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Dr Roger Cook Programme Development Group, Wellington, New Zealand Professor Leo Paul Dana Management Department, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand Dr Ruth Fairchild School of Applied Sciences, UWIC, Cardiff, UK Professor Christina Fjellstro¨m Department of Domestic Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden Professor Lynn Frewer Marketing and Consumer Behaviour Group, Social Sciences Department, University of Wageningen, The Netherlands Susan Gregory Research Fellow, Research Unit in Health, Behaviour and Change, University of Edinburgh Medical School, Edinburgh, UK Cathy Hart Senior Lecturer in Retailing and Operations Management, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK Dr Adam Lindgreen Faculty of Technology Management, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands Dr Ingela Marklinder Department of Domestic Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

Professor Alberto Mattiacci Universita` degli Studi di Siena, Siena, Italy Barry Michaels The Michaels Group, Palatka, Florida, USA Professor Bevan Moseley Blandford House, Reading, UK Dr Yasmine Motarjemi Food Safety Manager, Nestec Ltd, Vevey, Switzerland Dr Martin Palmer Head, Industry Consulting, Meat and Livestock Commission, Milton Keynes, UK Stephen Ridge Associate Director Quality Assurance, Somerfield Stores Ltd, Bristol, UK Terry Robinson Teesside Business School, University of Teesside, Middlesborough, UK Claire Seaman Faculty of Business and Enterprise, Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh, UK Dr Andrew Smith Nottingham University Business School, Nottingham, UK Richard Sprenger Highfield Publications, Sprotborough, Doncaster, UK Professor Claudio Vignali ‘‘Arnold Ziff’’ Chair in Retail Marketing Management Tourism, Hospitality & Events School, Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, UK Professor Alex Von Holy Roosevelt Park, Gauteng, South Africa Professor Tihomir Vranesevic Graduate School of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb, Croatia Professor Verner Wheelock Verner Wheelock Associates, Broughton Hall Business Park, Skipton, UK Dr Stephen Wu Head, Division of Health & Applied Sciences, School of Professional and Continuing Education, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0007-070X.htm

Consumer food safety knowledge Segmentation of Irish home food preparers based on food safety knowledge and practice Jean Kennedy

Consumer food safety knowledge 441

The National Food Centre, Ashtown, Ireland

Valerie Jackson Food Microbiology Research Group, NICHE, University of Ulster at Jordanstown, Jordanstown, UK

Cathal Cowan The National Food Centre, Ashtown, Ireland

Ian Blair and David McDowell Food Microbiology Research Group, NICHE, University of Ulster at Jordanstown, Jordanstown, UK, and

Declan Bolton The National Food Centre, Ashtown, Ireland Abstract Purpose – Consumers have an important role to play in preventing food-borne disease. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate that consumers could be segmented successfully based on their food safety knowledge and practice. Design/methodology/approach – Principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) were applied to data on food safety knowledge and practice, collected by individual face-to-face questionnaires with domestic food preparers (n ¼ 1; 020) and refrigerator swabs (n ¼ 726). Findings – From the food safety questionnaires four factors were identified as important for inclusion in the HCA. This analysis identified three groups of consumers based on the knowledge factors; they were “Conscientious” (21 per cent), “Cavalier” (25.4 per cent) and “Careful” (53.3 per cent) food handlers. In terms of food safety knowledge, the higher risk consumers were found to be in the Cavalier food handler group. This group of food handlers also engaged in less hygienic food handling practices. This group were more likely than the other groups to be less than 45 years of age, male, living in urban environments and those with higher levels of formal education. Originality/value – The identification of consumer groups with respect to food safety is important as it can inform more effective tailoring and targeting of food consumer safety education programmes to reach higher risk groups and individuals. This is the first study to not only identify the demographic characteristics of higher risk groups, but also to relate the levels of food safety knowledge/practice to levels of contamination in the fridges of such at risk groups using HCA and PCA. Keywords Food safety, Survey, Consumers, Cluster analysis, Refrigeration, Ireland Paper type Research paper

The research team would like to extend their gratitude to SafeFood, The Food Safety Promotion Board for funding this research.

British Food Journal Vol. 107 No. 7, 2005 pp. 441-452 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0007-070X DOI 10.1108/00070700510606864

BFJ 107,7

442

Introduction Many food materials may be contaminated by pathogenic bacteria at almost every stage of the food production, processing, retail and service chain, placing consumers at considerable risks of contracting food borne illness, leading to increased individual and societal costs in terms of discomfort/disability, loss of economic productivity and pressures on primary and public health resources. For this reason, significant legislative, industrial and public health authority efforts are devoted to establishing and maintaining effective surveillance and control of the commercial food chain. Such efforts may however be in vain, if they are not matched by safe food shopping, preparation, cooking and handling in the domestic environment. Commercial catering premises are the most frequently identified settings of foodborne disease outbreaks (World Health Organization, 2000; Clayton and Griffith, 2004; Olsen et al., 2000). However, most consumers overestimate the contribution of “eating out”, and underestimate the contribution of their own domestic food storage and preparation practices, to the overall burden of food-borne illness (Clayton and Griffith, 2004). Thus most consumers are not aware, or do not accept, that more than half of all registered food-borne infections were contracted in the home (Beumer and Kusumaningrum, 2003). Concerns in this area have stimulated a number of previous investigations of domestic food preparation practices, using telephone surveys (Woodburn and Raab, 1997), postal surveys (Williamson et al., 1992), home visits (Worsfold and Griffith, 1996), observations (Jay et al., 1999a) and laboratory simulations (Meredith et al., 2001). Reviewing the findings of these studies, Daniels (1998) concluded that 99 per cent of cooks make a least one major food hygiene error in the preparation of each meal and that such errors are frequently compounded by cross contamination. Against such a background, there is an urgent need to improve domestic food hygiene knowledge and practice (Clayton and Griffith, 2004). However, consumer education activities are expensive to mount, maintain and evaluate. Thus it is particularly important to identify, target, and reach, higher risk consumer groups correctly. This study uses principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) in the identification of such higher risk groups. Methodology As part of a wider study, 102 sample locations on the island of Ireland were chosen by the Marketing Research Bureau of Ireland (MRBI), using methods to ensure that the results obtained would be representative of the entire population and free from interviewer bias. Appropriate quota controls on the number of people in the household, the occupation of the chief wage earner and the employment status of the main food preparer were put in place, and the socio-demographic profile of respondents have been previously described by Kennedy et al. (2005). Ten or more households in each location were visited using a “random route procedure”. Residents were not given notification of the visit and homes in each area were “cold called” until the quota and target number (ten) had been achieved in each area. In total 1,020 households participated in this survey. All the respondents were identified as responsible for food preparation and cooking in their household. All the answers were unprompted. The questionnaire included a number of questions similar to those used in previous surveys in the UK

(Walker, 1996), the USA (Altekruse et al., 1995), Australia (Jay et al., 1999b) and Ireland (Food Safety Authority of Ireland, 1998). On completion of the questionnaire respondents were asked to allow a swab sample to be taken from the surface of their domestic refrigerator. The methods used in the analysis of such swabs, and the results obtained have been previously described Kennedy et al. (2005). Multivariate analysis of data from the food safety questionnaire The data analysis was completed using SPSS version 10.1 (Statistical Package for Social Science) in three stages: (1) Responses from the food safety questionnaire were grouped using PCA (Jang et al., 2002; Lee et al., 2003). (2) Respondents grouped in (1) were clustered by HCA (Kuo et al., 2002). (3) The HCA clusters were analysed in terms of the microbiological status of the respondents’ refrigerators and the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents in each cluster. 1. PCA The details of the responses to the food safety knowledge questions have been previously presented and discussed by Kennedy et al. (2005). In this study the responses were entered into an SPSS database and analysed using PCA to determine those factors that were important in differentiating respondents in terms of food safety knowledge. The answers to the questions, “When you cut raw meat and need to use the cutting board again, what do you do?” and “When you cut raw meat and need to use the knife again, what do you do?” were re-coded into correct and incorrect answers. The correct answers were; wash with detergent and hot water, wash with detergent, hot water, and bleach or use a different board. The incorrect answers were; re-use the cutting board as it is, rinse with cold water or wipe with a damp cloth. The answers to the questions, “How do you check that poultry is sufficiently cooked?” and “How do you check that red meat is sufficiently cooked?” were re-coded into correct and incorrect answers. The correct answers were; when the juice runs clear or when it has the correct thermometer reading. The incorrect answers were; when it tastes cooked, when the meat looks cooked on the inside, when the meat falls away from the bone, when it has a brown and crisp outer coating and when it has been cooking for the stated required time (Kennedy et al., 2005). Varimax rotation and Kaiser normalisation was used to simplify the interpretation of factors (Garson, 2004) and factor loadings were used to interpret each factor (Hair et al. 1998). All questions with factor loadings . 0.4 were retained for a second Varimax rotation with Kaiser normalisation. The factor loadings from this second rotation were used in the interpretation of the factors (Shim et al., 2001). The PCA was used with a predetermined cut-off eigenvalue of one (Hair et al., 1998). Reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s alpha) were computed to identify those factors, which displayed reasonable levels of internal consistency (Cronbach, 1951; Hair et al., 1998; Shim et al., 2001).

Consumer food safety knowledge 443

BFJ 107,7

444

2. HCA The factors identified above were used to allocate respondents into homogenous clusters by HCA, using the method of Ward, as described by Kuo et al. (2002). An agglomeration schedule enabled the identification the optimum number of clusters (Hibbert et al., 2004). The cluster solution was confirmed by calculating a Wilks lambda value and an F-ratio score. The mean scores for the food safety factors were computed to characterise each cluster. In this characterisation of the clusters, the analysis of variance (ANOVA), Partial Eta squared and Bonferroni tests identified and quantified the contribution each factor made in differentiating the clusters as well as the significant difference between clusters (Shim et al., 2001; Young, 1993). The Wilks’ test as described by Thanasoulias et al. (2003) was applied to derive lambda values for the comparison of the cluster means. 3. Hygiene status of respondents’ refrigerators and their socio-demographic characteristics Clusters were differentiated into microbiological status groups as described by Kennedy et al. (2005). Briefly, this process grouped respondent refrigerators in terms of: . the presence/absence of Staphylococcus aureus or Salmonella; . a wider group of pathogens including these organisms, and Yersinia enterocolitica and Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli; and . TVCs. To determine if there was a significant difference between the clusters, the TVC was re-coded into “high” or “low” as per the distribution of the data. Salmonella enterica, Staphylococcus aureus and “any pathogen” were not re-coded as they were coded as “present” or “absent” in the original data set. Clusters were characterised using sociodemographic data (gender, location, age and levels of education). To determine if there was a significant difference between the clusters, the variable “age” was re-coded into “over 45 years” or “under 45 years” as per distribution of the data. Gender, location and education were not re-coded. The relationship between and within each cluster in terms of microbiological status of refrigerators and sociodemographic data were analysed using Bonferroni, Wilks’ lambda and univariate F-ratios as described by Shim et al. (2001) and Thanasoulias et al. (2003). Results 1. PCA Table I presents the factor loading scores after the second varimax rotation with Kaiser normalisation. A total of 11 questions were included in the second Varimax rotation. As this is a relatively small number of statements, it is possible that a greater number would have strengthened verification of the PCA. Nine of these 11 questions had factor loadings greater than 0.6. All 11 questions had eigenvalues greater than 1, accounting for 61.35 per cent of the variance. The Cronbach alpha coefficients ranged from 0.47 to 0.88 and grouped the questions into four factors, which were constructed by 11 questions. Analysis of these factors identified the themes, which could be influential in distinguishing respondents in the HCA.

Factor loading values Factor 1 – cross contamination When you cut raw meat and need to use the cutting board again, what do you do? When you cut raw meat and need to use the knife again, what do you do? Do you clean your hands correctly? Factor 2 – cooking How do you check that red meat is sufficiently cooked? How do you check that poultry is sufficiently cooked? Factor 3 – familiar bacteria Have you heard of Salmonella? Have you heard of Listeria? Have you heard of E. coli? Factor 4 – unfamiliar bacteria Have you heard of Staphylococcus aureus? Have you heard of Clostridium perfringens? Have you heard of Campylobacter? Total variance explained by the four factors

Factor loading

Eigenvalue

Variance explained (%)

Cronbach alpha

21.43

0.72

0.94

Consumer food safety knowledge

-

445

0.94 0.37 16.18

0.88

14.29

0.47

11.25

0.55

0.94 0.93 0.72 0.69 0.65 0.78 0.78 0.57 63.16

The results for Factor 1, which included three questions concerned with cross contamination are presented in Table I. The factor loading on the question relating to cross-contamination of cutting boards was 0.94, the factor loading on the question relating to cross-contamination of knives was 0.94 and the factor loading on the handwashing question was 0.37. The Cronbach alpha criterion for factor 1 was 0.72. Factor 1 accounted for 21.43 per cent of the total variance. The results obtained for Factor 2, which included two questions about cooking of meat and poultry are presented in Table I. The factor loading on the question regarding the cooking of red meat was 0.94 and the factor loading on the question regarding cooking of poultry was 0.93. The Cronbach alpha criterion for factor 2 was 0.88. Factor 2 accounted for 16.18 per cent of the total variance. The results obtained for Factor 3, which included three questions concerned with “familiar bacteria” are presented in Table I. The group of bacteria comprises Salmonella, Listeria and E. coli i.e. those species and/or genera most frequently named/known in the overall survey (Kennedy et al., 2005). The factor loadings on the question regarding knowledge of Salmonella were 0.72, 0.69 for knowledge of Listeria and 0.65 for knowledge of E. coli. The Cronbach alpha was criterion for factor 3 was 0.47. Factor 3 accounted for 14.29 per cent of the total variance. Factor 4 including 3 questions was concerned with “unfamiliar bacteria” (see Table I). The bacteria in this factor were named “unfamiliar bacteria” because in the survey by Kennedy et al. (2005) Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridium perfringens and Campylobacter were less commonly known than other bacteria. The factor loading on the question regarding knowledge of Staphylococcus aureus was 0.78, on the question regarding

Table I. Factor analysis

BFJ 107,7

446

knowledge of Clostridium perfringens it was 0.78 and for the factor loading on the question regarding knowledge of Campylobacter it was 0.57. The Cronbach alpha criterion for factor 4 was 0.55. Factor 4 accounted for 11.25 per cent of the total variance. 2. HCA The agglomeration schedule identified a three-cluster solution. The Wilks’ lambda value (0.038) with an F-ratio giving a P-value of less than 0.05 confirmed that the clusters were significantly different overall in their food safety knowledge. There were differences among the sizes of the F-ratios obtained, indicating that the three clusters were differentiated more clearly in relation to some factors than others. For a two-cluster and four-cluster solution, the F ratios indicated less differentiation between the clusters for the three factors. The solution chosen also delivered effective segments in regard to size (are sufficiently large), measurability (can be profiled), accessibility and action (can be addressed). Larger F-ratios were derived for Factor 1 (3,168.54, p , 0:001) and Factor 2 (732.3, p , 0:001) than Factor 3 (14.64, p , 0:001) or Factor 4 (14.37, p , 0:001). Correspondingly, the partial Eta squared indicating the effect size, where each factor is treated separately (Young, 1993) showed that Factor 1 accounted for 87.2 per cent, Factor 2 accounted for 61.2 per cent, Factor 3 accounted for 1.3 per cent and Factor 4 accounted for 3 per cent of the overall variance (Table II). Cluster 1 comprised 53.3 per cent of the respondents (Table II). Members of this cluster were significantly more likely to check that red meat and poultry were sufficiently/safely cooked than respondents in the other clusters. They were significantly less likely to know the familiar bacteria than respondents in the other clusters. Cluster 2 comprised 25.4 per cent of the respondents (Table II). Members of this cluster had the lowest scores on correct methods for prevention of cross-contamination, on checking that red meat and poultry were sufficiently/safely cooked and on knowledge of unfamiliar bacteria. These respondents scored significantly lower than Cluster 1 and Cluster 3 on all the factors except knowledge of the “familiar bacteria”. Cluster 3 comprised 21.2 per cent of the respondents. Members of this cluster were significantly more likely to know the correct methods for prevention of cross-contamination than cluster 1 and 2, but were significantly less likely than cluster 1 or cluster 2 to check that red meat and poultry were sufficiently cooked in a safe manner. They were significantly more likely than those in Cluster 1 to know the “familiar bacteria” and “unfamiliar bacteria”. Members of Cluster 3 gave responses that were significantly different from those of members of Cluster 1 in relation to all factors and did not have the lowest score for any factor (Table II). 3. Hygiene status of respondents’ refrigerators and their socio-demographic characteristics Table III shows that there were significant differences between the three clusters based on the four microbiological variables, (TVC, presence of Salmonella enterica, Staphylococcus aureus and “any pathogen”). The univariate F-ratios were significant based on the four microbiological variables used in the analysis. The Wilks lambda value with an F-ratio giving a P-value of less than 0.001 confirmed that the clusters were significantly different overall in the microbiological status of their refrigerators. Members of Cluster 1 i.e. those who were significantly more likely to check that red meat and poultry were sufficiently cooked than those in other clusters scored better

1 2 3 4

Cross-contamination Cooking Familiar bacteria Unfamiliar bacteria

2 0.51c 2 1.26b 0.26b,c 2 0.26b

2 0.47b 0.62b 2 0.15b,c 0.03b

1.8b,c 2 0.05b 0.06b 0.24b

3 n ¼ 198 (21.2 per cent) 0 0 0 0

Population n ¼ 932 (100 per cent) 3,168.54 732.3 14.64 14.37

One-way ANOVA F*

0.872 0.612 0.013 0.03

Partial ETA squareda

Notes: * All at 0.001 significance level, df ¼ 2. Bonferroni test indicated that two clusters with the same superscript had significant differences between them at the 0.05 significance level, e.g. knowledge about cross-contamination is significantly different between cluster 1 and 3 and 2 and 3 but not 1 and 2. a Wilks’ Lambda test, F-ratio ¼ 950:88 (df ¼ 8, p , 0:001)

Factor Factor Factor Factor

Cluster 2 n ¼ 237 (25.4 per cent)

1 n ¼ 497 (53.3 per cent)

Consumer food safety knowledge 447

Table II. Differences from the population mean values for each of the three clusters using the identified factors

BFJ 107,7

448

than the population average (cluster 1, 2 and 3 together) on all microbiological factors. However, those in Cluster 1 were significantly more likely than Cluster 3 to have microbiological indicators of contamination (Table III). Members of Cluster 2 i.e. those who had the lowest scores on the correct methods for prevention of cross contamination, on checking that red meat and poultry were sufficiently cooked and on knowledge of unfamiliar bacteria were significantly more likely to have “any pathogen”, Staphylococcus aureus or Salmonella enterica in their refrigerator than Cluster 3 who displayed better knowledge of unsafe food practices and microorganisms. Cluster 2 food handlers were worse than the overall population average on all microbiological factors. The results of the Bonferroni tests are presented in Table III. These results show that the only significant differences between the microbiological results obtained from refrigerators of those in Cluster 1 and Cluster 2 were in the TVCs. Members of Cluster 2 were significantly more likely to have a high TVC than members of Cluster 1 (with p , 0:001). Refrigerators belonging to members of Cluster 3 i.e. those who did not score the lowest on any knowledge factor had an average TVC that was significantly lower than the average TVC found in the refrigerators of Cluster 1 or Cluster 2. The conscientious food handlers were statistically less likely to have higher TVCs, “any pathogen”, S. aureus or Salmonella enterica in their refrigerator (Table III). Table IV shows the significant differences between the three clusters in the age, gender and location variables. The largest differences were based on the age (F-ratio ¼ 8:08) and location (F-ratio ¼ 4:60) factors. The univariate F-ratios were significant for the four socio-demographic variables used in the analysis. The Wilks lambda value with an F-ratio giving a P-value of less than 0.001 confirmed that the clusters were significantly different overall in the terms of sociodemographic profiles. Cluster 1 food handlers were significantly different than Cluster 2 food handlers in terms of education and age. Cluster 1 were more likely to have spent less time in formal education (i.e. left school during or directly after secondary level education), were more likely to be over 45 years of age and more likely to be female than Cluster 2. Cluster 1 and Cluster 3 had similar socio-demographic profiles except that Cluster 3 were more likely to be female. Cluster 2 respondents were significantly more likely than Cluster 3 respondents to be young (, 45 years of age), male, from urban areas, having more formal education (i.e. university, other third level or professional education).

Cluster 1 2 3 Differences from the mean

Table III. Differences from the mean values for each of the three clusters using refrigerator hygiene factors

TVC Pathogen S. aureus Salmonella enterica

0.02a 0.03a 0.03a 0.02a

0.15a 0.09b 0.08b 0.01b

2 0.25a 2 0.19a,b 2 0.16a,b 2 0.06a,b

Population Mean

One-way ANOVA F*

Partial Eta squared

1.6 0.46 0.4 0.06

38.77 21.62 17.1 10.09

0.077 0.044 0.036 0.021

Notes: * All at 0.001 significance level; Bonferroni test indicated that two clusters with the same superscript had significant differences between them at the 0.05 significance level. Wilks’ Lambda, F-ratio ¼ 5:193 (p , 0:001)

Table IV shows that Cluster 3 respondents were more likely to be female than the other clusters. Cluster 3 respondents were also more likely to be from an urban location than Cluster 1, and more likely to have received less formal education than cluster 3. Discussion In this study the respondent population was successfully segmented in terms of their food safety knowledge and reported practice. Cluster analysis has been previously used to segment consumers based on preference data for the purpose of target marketing of products (Murray and Delahunty, 2000), to identify dietary patterns (Kristeller and Rodin, 1989; Wirfalt and Jeffery, 1997) and to segment consumers based on attitudes towards food purchase (Ryan et al., 2004). Many studies have shown that consumer food safety behaviour and knowledge differ according to demographic and socio-economic factors such as gender, age, educational level and economic status (Altekruse et al., 1999; Fein et al., 1995; Johnson et al., 1998; Klontz et al., 1991; Schlech et al., 1983). This study is the first study to identify the demographic characteristics of higher risk groups (in terms of food safety) and also to relate the levels of food safety knowledge/practice to levels of contamination in the refrigerators of such at risk groups using PCA and HCA. Three cluster/groups of respondent emerged from the analysis. Cluster 1 had the characteristics of Careful food handlers. These food handlers were more likely to know about safe cooking practices but less likely to know about familiar bacteria than respondents in other clusters. Careful food handlers were significantly more likely than Cluster 3 but less likely than Cluster 2 to have microbiological indicators of contamination. Cluster 2 had the characteristics of Cavalier food handlers. Cavalier food handlers were less knowledgeable than Careful food handlers or Cluster 3 in terms of safe cooking practices, prevention of cross-contamination and unfamiliar bacteria. Cavalier food handlers scored worse than the population average on all microbiological factors. Cluster 3 had the characteristics of Conscientious food handlers. These food handlers did not have the lowest score on any knowledge factors and were less likely than other clusters to have microbial indicators of contamination in their refrigerators. The group displaying and reporting undesirable domestic practices in relation to food safety, the Cavalier food handlers, were identified as young (, 45 years of age), male, respondents from urban areas and/or those with university, other third level or professional education.

1 Location Education Age Gender

Cluster 2 3 Differences from the mean

2 0.01 2 0.07a 0.03a 0.01a

a

0.05 0.23a,b 2 0.07a 2 0.07b

a

20.05 20.15b 0.03 0.09a,b

Population Mean

Univariate F*

1.24 2.81 1.51 1.77

4.60 3.22 8.08 3.67

Notes: * All at 0.05 significance level; Bonferroni test indicated that two clusters with the same superscript had significant differences between them at the 0.05 significance level; Wilks Lambda, F-ratio ¼ 4:186 (p , 0:001)

Consumer food safety knowledge 449

Table IV. Differences from the population mean values for each of the three clusters using demographic factors

BFJ 107,7

450

This study has shown that the Cavalier food handlers were more knowledgeable about familiar bacteria but less knowledgeable about unfamiliar bacteria than the other clusters. This is not entirely in agreement with other findings (Altekruse et al., 1999; Woodburn and Raab, 1997; Altekruse et al., 1995; McIntosh et al., 1994), which reported that knowledge about pathogens is an important motivator for safe food practice. In this study, knowledge of how to prevent cross contamination and awareness of how to cook food thoroughly were important pieces of knowledge in distinguishing factors and also lacking among Cavalier food handlers. These factors may be important in enhancing food safety practice as demonstrated by microbiologically cleaner refrigerators. Conclusion This study has shown that there is a positive relationship between food safety knowledge and safe food handling practices. What is now needed is to consider what practical ideas on food hygiene measures can be put in place. For example, it is important that the at risk group, the Cavalier food handlers, are given personalised information about food safety hazards to avoid the risk of an underestimated perceived personal risk status (Frewer et al., 1994). The information in the food safety message to the Cavalier food handler should include guidelines for the prevention of cross contamination and the correct methods of checking that meat and poultry are sufficiently cooked. The message should also include some information about food borne pathogens. References Altekruse, S.F., Street, D.A. and Fein, S.B. (1995), “Consumer knowledge of foodborne microbial hazards and food-handling practices”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 59 No. 3, pp. 287-94. Altekruse, S.F., Yang, S., Timbo, B.B. and Angula, F.J. (1999), “A multi-state survey of consumer food-handling and food-consumption practices”, American Journal of Preventative Medicine, Vol. 16, pp. 216-21. Beumer, R.R. and Kusumaningrum, H. (2003), “Kitchen hygiene in daily life”, International Biodeterioration and Biodegradation, Vol. 51 No. 4, pp. 299-302. Clayton, D.A. and Griffith, C.J. (2004), “Observation of food safety practices in catering using notational analysis”, British Food Journal, Vol. 106 No. 3, pp. 221-7. Cronbach, L.J. (1951), “Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests”, Psychometrika, Vol. 163, pp. 297-334. Daniels, R.W. (1998), “Home food safety”, Food Technology, Vol. 52 No. 2, pp. 54-6. Fein, S.B., Jordan-Lin, C.T. and Levy, S.A. (1995), “Food borne illness: perceptions, experiences and preventative behaviors in the United States”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 58, pp. 1405-11. Food Safety Authority of Ireland (1998), Public Knowledge and Attitudes to Food Safety in Ireland, Food Safety Authority of Ireland, Dublin. Frewer, L.J., Shepherd, R. and Sparks, P. (1994), “The interrelationships between perceived knowledge, control and risk associated with a range of food-related hazards targeted at the individual, other people and society”, Journal of Food Safety, Vol. 14, pp. 19-40. Garson, D. (2004), “Factor analysis: SPSS output. Quantitative research in public administration”, available at: http://www2.chass.ncsu.edu/garson/pa765/index.htm

Hair, J., Anderson, R., Tatham, R. and Black, W. (1998), Multivariate Data Analysis, 5th ed., Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Hibbert, S.A., Horne, S. and Tagg, S. (2004), “Charity retailers in competition for merchandise: examining how consumers dispose of used goods”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 58 No. 6, pp. 819-28. Jang, S.C., Morrison, A.M. and O’Leary, J.T. (2002), “Benefit segmentation of Japanese pleasure travelers to the USA and Canada: selecting target markets based on the profitability and risk of individual market segments”, Tourism Management, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 367-78. Jay, S., Comar, D. and Govenlock, L.D. (1999a), “A video of Australian domestic food handling practices”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 62 No. 11, pp. 1285-96. Jay, S.L., Comar, D. and Govenlock, L.D. (1999b), “A national Australian food safety telephone survey”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 62 No. 8, pp. 921-8. Johnson, A.E., Donkin, A.J.M., Morgan, K., Lilley, J.M., Neale, R.J., Page, R.M. and Silburn, R. (1998), “Food safety knowledge and practice among elderly people living at home”, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Vol. 52, pp. 745-8. Kennedy, J., Jackson, V., Bolton, D.J., Blair, I. and McDowell, D. (2005), “A food safety and microbiological survey of consumers and their refrigerators”, Journal of Food Protection, in press. Klontz, K.C., Desenclos, J.C., Wolfe, L.E., Hoecherl, S.A., Roberts, C. and Gunn, R.A. (1991), “The raw oyster consumer – a risk taker? Use of the behavioral risk factor surveillance system”, Epidemiology, Vol. 2, pp. 437-40. Kristeller, J.L. and Rodin, J. (1989), “Identifying eating patterns in male and female undergraduates using cluster analysis”, Addictive Behaviors, Vol. 14, pp. 631-42. Kuo, R.J., Ho, L.M. and Hu, C.M. (2002), “Integration of self-organizing feature map and K-means algorithm for market segmentation”, Computers and Operations Research, Vol. 29 No. 11, pp. 1475-93. Lee, C., Lee, Y. and Wicks, B.E. (2003), “Segmentation of festival motivation by nationality and satisfaction”, Tourism Management, Vol. 25 No. 1, pp. 61-70. McIntosh, W.A., Christensen, L.B. and Acuff, G.R. (1994), “Perceptions of risks of eating undercooked meat and willingness to change cooking practices”, Appetite, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 83-96. Meredith, L., Lewis, R. and Haslum, M. (2001), “Contributory factors to the spread of contamination in a model kitchen”, British Food Journal, Vol. 103 No. 1, pp. 23-35. Murray, J.M. and Delahunty, C.M. (2000), “Mapping consumer preferences for the sensory and packaging attributes of Cheddar cheese”, Food Quality and Preference, Vol. 11, pp. 419-35. Olsen, S.J., MacKinnon, L.C., Goulding, J.S., Bean, N.H. and Slutsker, L. (2000), “Surveillance of foodborne disease outbreaks – United States”, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly, CDC Surveillance Summary, No. 49. Ryan, I., Cowan, C., McCarthy, M. and O’Sullivan, C. (2004), “Segmenting Irish food consumers using the food-related lifestyle instrument”, Journal of International Food and Agribusiness Marketing, Vol. 16, pp. 89-108. Schlech, W.F., Lavigne, P.M., Bortolussi, R.A., Allen, A.C., Haldane, E.V., Wort, A.J., Hightower, A.W., Johnsose, A., King, S.H., Nicholls, E.S. and Broome, C.V. (1983), “Epidemic Listerosis – evidence for transmission by food”, New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 308 No. 4, pp. 203-6. Shim, S., Gehrt, K. and Lotz, S. (2001), “Export implications for the Japanese fruit market: fruit specific lifestyle segments”, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 29 No. 6, pp. 298-314.

Consumer food safety knowledge 451

BFJ 107,7

452

Thanasoulias, N.C., Parisis, N.A. and Evmiridis, N.P. (2003), “Multivariate chemometrics for the forensic discrimination of blue ball-point pen inks based on their Vis spectra”, Forensic Science International, Vol. 138 Nos 1-3, pp. 75-84. Walker, A. (1996), Food Safety in the Home: A Survey of Public Awareness, Office for National Statistics Social Survey Division, HMSO, London. Williamson, D.W., Gravani, R.B. and Lawless, H.T. (1992), “Correlating food safety knowledge with home food preparation practices”, Food Technology, pp. 94-100. Wirfalt, A.K.E. and Jeffery, R.W. (1997), “Using cluster analysis to examine dietary patterns: nutrient intakes, gender, and weight status differ across pattern clusters”, Research, Vol. 97 No. 3, pp. 272-9. Woodburn, M.J. and Raab, C.A. (1997), “Household food preparers’ food-safety knowledge and practices following widely publicized outbreaks of foodborne illness”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 60 No. 9, pp. 1105-9. World Health Organization (2000), The WHO Surveillance Programme for Control of Foodborne Infections and Intoxications in Europe: 7th Report (1993-1998), World Health Organization, Geneva. Worsfold, D. and Griffith, C.J. (1996), “An assessment of cleanliness in domestic kitchens”, Hygiene and Nutrition in Food Service and Catering, Vol. 1, pp. 163-73. Young, M.A. (1993), “Supplementing tests of statistical significance: variation accounted for”, JSHR, Vol. 36, pp. 644-56.

The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0007-070X.htm

Bacterial contamination of domestic kitchens over a 24-hour period I.W. Haysom

Bacterial contamination

453

School of Science and the Environment, Bath Spa University College, Bath, UK, and

A.K. Sharp School of Life and Sports Sciences, Roehampton University, London, UK Abstract Purpose – Many cases of food poisoning originate in the domestic environment and can be associated with improper food handling and ineffective cleaning by consumers. These practices could lead to the introduction and spread of bacterial contamination in the kitchen and if not subsequently removed could present an infection risk. This study proposes investigating changes in levels of bacterial contamination at five key sites in ten domestic kitchens during a period of 24 hours. Design/methodology/approach – Microbiological swabs were used to provide an aerobic colony count and an Enterobacteriacea count. A record was kept of cooking, cleaning and other activities within the kitchen. Findings – Results showed that contamination levels varied during the day, peaking after meal preparation and generally falling overnight. There was also indirect evidence of cross contamination, particularly from hands to other surfaces. Sites such as the refrigerator handle, kettle handle and taps, which generally only come into contact with hands, show increases in the levels of contamination recorded. Levels of microbiological contamination were lower in vegetarian than non-vegetarian households. A variety of data showed that non-food preparation activities also take place in the kitchen. These could also introduce bacterial contamination into the kitchen and facilitate their spread. Originality/value – The implications of these results are that the most important time for cleaning in the kitchen is immediately after food has been prepared, with attention focussing on high risk areas such as the work surface, chopping board, taps and other hand contact surfaces. Keywords Domestic safety, Hygiene, Contamination, Bacteria, Food safety Paper type Research paper

Introduction Recorded cases of food poisoning in the UK in 2003 were 70,895 (Health Protection Agency, 2005) and continue to be of concern. Many of these cases originate in the domestic environment although estimates vary from 12-17 per cent (Redmond et al., 2004) to 50-80 per cent (Scott, 1996). In contrast to commercial premises, there is no legislation and very little training to inform domestic food preparation practices (Scott, 1996). Many studies have investigated bacterial contamination in the domestic kitchen. (De Wit et al., 1979; Humphrey et al., 1994; Spiers et al., 1995; Worsfold and Griffith, 1996; Jay et al., 1999; Humphrey et al., 2001; Meredith et al., 2001; Gorman et al., 2002) and these have been reviewed by Redmond and Griffith (2003). Microbial contaminants varied, the most common being Enterobacteriaceae although Salmonella, Campylobacter, E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus were also frequently recovered.

British Food Journal Vol. 107 No. 7, 2005 pp. 453-466 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0007-070X DOI 10.1108/00070700510606873

BFJ 107,7

454

Gorman et al. (2002) noted an increase in sites in the kitchen with an aerobic plate count of . 105 cfu ml-1 after preparation of a chicken meal and Meredith et al.(2001) identified that an increase in the number of hygiene violations during the preparation of a meal was matched with an increase in the number of contaminated sites in the kitchen. These studies highlight the potential microbial risks of particular sites in the kitchen, for example sinks, taps, work surfaces and dishcloths and the role of food preparation in contributing to contamination levels. Bacterial contaminants are introduced to the kitchen in a variety of ways and once attached to surfaces, particularly in biofilms, are difficult to remove (Eginton et al., 1998). The effectiveness of cleaning regimes in domestic households has been investigated (Josephson et al., 1997; Rusin et al., 1998; Cogan et al., 1999). In these studies, initially, almost all sites in all households exhibited some bacterial contamination. Cleaning was shown to reduce bacterial contamination, but only when anti-microbial agents were applied using a strict protocol. Where cleaning was carried out simply with detergent and hot water using a prescribed method, 15.4 per cent sites remained contaminated compared to 17.3 per cent sites after cleaning where no method was specified. After disinfecting with 5,000 ppm hypochlorite for five minutes using a specified method, pathogens were isolated from just 2.3 per cent of sample sites (Cogan et al., 1999). Dishcloths act as both habitats and vectors for bacterial contaminants. Warmth, moisture and food debris allow bacterial counts to reach high levels rapidly (Davis et al., 1968). Total counts of up to 3:0 £ 1010 were recorded on dishcloths and these cloths are able to transfer contaminants to other sites (Gilbert, 1969; Scott and Bloomfield, 1993; Sharp and Parkinson, 1999). In a domestic kitchen, it is likely that one chopping board is used for a variety of purposes: it therefore poses a high risk of cross contamination, particularly if the board is used for chopping raw meat or poultry (De Boer and Hahne, 1990, Brown et al., 1998). A study by Zhao et al. (1998) showed that bacteria were readily transferred to chopping boards during preparation of meat and then contaminated vegetables prepared on the same board. It is unlikely that typical cleaning procedures that do not involve disinfectant will remove these contaminants (Barker et al., 2003). Hands have been shown to transfer bacteria from foods to various sites in the kitchen (Pether and Gilbert, 1971; Mackintosh and Hoffman, 1984) and several studies have shown a wide range of kitchen sites to be cross-contaminated by food preparation activities (De Wit et al., 1979; Dawkins et al., 1984; De Boer and Hahne, 1990; Humphrey et al., 2001) A study by Haysom and Sharp(2003) demonstrated how a number of kitchen sites including surfaces, chopping board, and the handles of taps, kettle and refrigerator become contaminated during the preparation of a meal from raw chicken. These studies have taken samples from one point in time, which while giving a good indication of contamination at that time, provides no indication of if or how contamination levels change over time. Unless cleaning is thorough, bacterial contamination may not be reduced (Josephson et al., 1997) and may even be increased via contaminated cloths (Scott and Bloomfield, 1993) or hands (De Boer and Hahne, 1990; Cogan et al., 1999; Haysom and Sharp, 2003). Contaminants may then grow potentially reaching infectious dose levels and, in the presence of moisture and food debris, surviving to contaminate the next food preparation event.

The present study investigates how the microbial load in the kitchen changes during a 24-hour period of use and the events that could cause this load to change. Sample collection was carried out by participants in their own homes in order to minimise potential changes in participant behaviour that may result from observational, laboratory-based or closed circuit video-based studies.

Bacterial contamination

Materials and methods Pilot study As the samples collected by participants could not be tested immediately, participants were asked to store samples in their refrigerator during the 24 hours of the study. All samples were then processed in the laboratory within four hours. To ensure that this storage period (maximum 30 hours) did not affect the recovery of bacteria from sample swabs, a pilot study compared aerobic colony counts (ACC) and Enterobacteriaceae immediately after sample collection and after storage of the sample for 30 hours in a refrigerator. Duplicate swabs were taken from a variety of kitchen sites (n ¼ 20) including surfaces, kettle handle, taps, refrigerator and chopping board. One swab for each site was immediately tested for ACC and Enterobacteriaceae. The other swab was stored in the refrigerator for 30 h and then tested for ACC and Enterobacteriaceae. Microbiological methods were as described below.

455

Participant recruitment Participants were recruited from householders at Roehampton University (RU). Recruitment criteria were that participants and their families would be at home for the majority of the 24-hour time period of the study (to ensure that the kitchen was used throughout the day) and that during that time, participants would prepare at least three meals using raw ingredients: at least one of the meals was to be cooked. Participants were asked to use their kitchen as normal during the 24 hours of the study, keeping a record of all food preparation, cleaning and other activities that took place. They were specifically asked to refrain from any cleaning other than that which would normally take place. Microbiological sampling Sample sites were selected because they had previously been implicated as reservoirs of bacterial contamination and were likely to be in regular use during domestic food preparation (Meredith et al., 2001; Haysom and Sharp, 2003). Prior to the experiment, participants were trained in taking swab samples aseptically. The process of sample collection and recording of information was explained to individual participants verbally and written guidance was provided for them to consult during the 24 hours of the study. Participants were asked to clean their kitchen before breakfast using hot soapy water followed by a water rinse. Swabs were then taken from five sites (work surface, kettle handle, taps, refrigerator handle and chopping board) to establish a basal level of contamination (time 0). Participants were also provided with a sterile dishcloth to use during the 24 hours of the study. Over the next 24 hours, a further three sets of swabs were collected from the same five sample sites. Timings were selected to coincide with meal preparation and were: time 1 – after breakfast had been prepared and cleared

BFJ 107,7

456

away, time 2 – after lunch and time 3 – after dinner. The final set of samples was taken the next morning before breakfast was prepared (time 4). To sample the work surface, participants were provided with sterile moistened cloths, sterile gloves and sterile bags. Participants placed a glove on their hand and used this hand to remove the moistened cloth from its bag. This cloth was then wiped over the work surface covering an area of approximately 0.5 m2. The cloth was then replaced in the bag with 45 ml maximum recovery diluent (MRD) (Lab M:LAB 103) and the bag was sealed. For all other sites, standard microbiological cotton swabs (Bibby Sterilin, 165KS01) were used and then placed in a sterile container with 10 ml MRD. All samples were stored in a refrigerator during the experiment. At the end of the 24-hour period, the dishcloth was placed into a sterile bag and sealed. All samples were taken to RU and processed within four hours. Samples were tested for ACCs and Enterobacteriaceae to give an estimate of total contamination levels and an indication of faecal contaminants and other hygiene indicators, respectively. ACCs and Enterobacteriaceae counts All samples were tested for ACC and Enterobacteriaceae using standard methodology. Briefly, ACC (British Standards Institute, 1991) and Enterobacteriaceae counts (British Standards Institute, 1993) were made by serially diluting the prepared samples and plating onto nutrient agar plates (Lab M:LAB8) and violet red bile glucose agar (Oxoid:CM485) respectively. After incubation at 378C for 24 hours, colonies were counted and the ACC and Enterobacteriaceae counts of each sample were calculated. Record of activities Participants were asked to record details of: food and drink preparation (to include a list of raw ingredients); cleaning; other activities that took place in the kitchen during the 24 hours of the study. The number of people in each household and their ages was also recorded. This information was analysed in conjunction with microbiological data. Statistical methods Data were analysed using the SPSS statistical package (release 10.1.3, 2001) and a p value of , 0.05 was taken to be statistically significant. Parametric t-tests, Pearson’s correlations and non-parametric Mann Whitney tests were used to analyse associations and differences between test data. Results Pilot study A t-test confirmed that that there was no significant difference between counts of duplicate samples stored for 0 or 30 hours for ACC (p ¼ 0:067) or Enterobacteriaceae (p ¼ 0:088), and therefore refrigerated storage of swabs for up to 30 hours would not significantly affect results (data not shown). Bacterial contamination in a domestic kitchen over a 24-hour period Recruited households. Ten participant households were recruited to the study. Their demographics and diet are summarised in Table I.

Household 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Number of adults

Number of children

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

0 1 2 1 3 2 2 1 2 1

Diet Vegetarian Vegetarian Omnivorous Omnivorous Omnivorous Omnivorous Omnivorous Omnivorous Omnivorous Omnivorous

Bacterial contamination in participating kitchens over a period of 24 hours. A summary of ACC and Enterobacteriaceae counts from sites in individual participating households is presented in Tables II and III respectively. Microbial loads are very variable both between households and between sites. Although participants were asked to clean the kitchen before the start of the 24-hour period, ACC from several sites were high on work surfaces (household 2, 2:4 £ 104 cfu ml-1; household 7, 1:9 £ 106 cfu ml-1; household 9, 3:1 £ 106 cfu ml-1), on tap handles (household 6, 1:5 £ 105 cfu ml-1; household 7, 3:2 £ 104 cfu ml-1), on kettle handles (household 6, 5:6 £ 104 cfu ml-1) and on refrigerator handles (household 6, 1:0 £ 106 cfu ml-1; household 7, 3:0 £ 106 cfu ml-1). In households 7 and 9, many of these contaminants were Enterobacteriaceae. In all households, ACC then changed throughout the 24 hours: 42 per cent of sites showed an increase during the day (time 0 to time 3). In most households and for 64 per cent of all sites, ACC decreased from time 0 to time 4 – the end of the 24 hours. However, ACC remained high in household 3 (kettle and refrigerator handles) and household 4 (tap and refrigerator handles) (Table II): in household 3, the Enterobacteriaceae count was 3:8 £ 106 cfu ml-1 at time 4. At the end of 24 hours all cloths had high counts of ACC (mean 4.0 £ 107 cfu ml2 1 ^ 4.4 £ 107 cfu ml-1) and Enterobacteriaceae (mean 2.9 £ 106 cfu ml2 1 ^ 6.5 £ 106 cfu ml-1). The mean ACC from all ten households for each sample time and sample site, is shown in Figure 1. For all sites except the chopping board, mean contamination levels were lower at time 4 than at time 0, although levels changed between these times with peaks at time 1 and 3 corresponding to preparation of breakfast and evening meal. The mean Enterobacteriaceae counts from all ten households for each sample time and sample site (Figure 2) shows a similar pattern, with all sites except the chopping board having lower mean contamination levels at time 4 than at time 0. Again peaks in contamination levels correspond to meal times. There was no correlation between the number of people in each household and levels of contamination. However, ACC and Enterobacteriaceae counts were lower (Mann-Whitney test, p ¼ 0:006 and 0.016, respectively) in the two vegetarian households (1 and 2) than those in which meat, fish or poultry were consumed. For both TVC and Enterobacteriaceae counts, the mean, standard error of the mean, variance and highest value obtained were all higher in meat eating households than vegetarian households.

Bacterial contamination

457 Table I. Composition and diet of participating households

BFJ 107,7

Sample site Work surface

458

Table II. Log 10 aerobic colony count results from all ten households

Time point

0 1 2 3 4 Mean SD Chopping board 0 1 2 3 4 Mean SD Tap handles 0 1 2 3 4 Mean SD Kettle handle 0 1 2 3 4 Mean SD Refrigerator handle 0 1 2 3 4 Mean SD Dishcloth 4

Household 6 7

1

2

3

4

5

1.60 3.30 3.45 3.23 2.90 2.90 0.75 1.00 3.87 3.41 3.00 3.38 2.93 1.12 1.85 2.81 1.85 2.36 3.30 2.43 0.63 1.00 1.60 2.11 1.70 2.68 1.82 0.63 1.48 3.76 2.78 2.56 2.00 2.51 0.86 7.62

4.38 3.98 2.59 5.48 3.63 4.01 1.05 1.60 0.70 2.04 0.70 1.00 1.21 0.59 1.78 2.81 1.30 1.95 0.70 1.71 0.78 3.62 1.90 1.30 1.48 1.70 2.00 0.94 2.81 2.08 1.70 0.70 1.30 1.72 0.80 7.41

3.23 3.30 2.95 2.95 3.08 3.10 0.16 2.85 2.30 2.60 3.23 3.43 2.88 0.46 3.20 3.11 2.48 2.85 2.95 2.92 0.28 2.90 1.70 2.00 2.30 3.72 2.53 0.80 2.60 2.00 1.70 2.48 6.24 3.00 1.84 8.18

3.72 3.51 2.78 3.78 2.57 3.27 0.56 2.36 1.85 2.58 2.95 3.46 2.64 0.61 2.08 2.34 3.41 2.00 5.25 3.02 1.37 2.23 1.70 2.11 2.00 2.95 2.20 0.47 2.60 4.41 3.40 3.85 4.08 3.67 0.70 7.38

2.32 2.11 2.61 2.23 2.20 2.30 0.19 2.28 1.70 3.62 3.08 2.18 2.57 0.77 2.56 1.70 2.30 3.00 2.56 2.42 0.48 1.60 2.00 1.30 1.00 2.43 1.67 0.57 2.08 0.70 3.51 1.48 1.85 1.92 1.03 7.28

3.63 3.76 3.45 3.57 3.18 3.52 0.22 2.32 2.00 3.01 3.34 2.56 2.64 0.53 5.19 5.06 5.21 5.10 4.76 5.06 0.18 4.75 2.28 1.78 3.15 3.66 3.12 1.17 5.00 4.89 4.28 4.53 4.30 4.60 0.33 7.75

6.28 5.48 4.45 4.81 1.70 4.55 1.74 2.90 4.45 2.48 2.48 1.70 2.80 1.02 4.51 4.24 1.70 2.30 1.70 2.89 1.38 3.40 2.30 3.40 2.78 2.30 2.84 0.55 6.48 4.62 4.14 3.00 2.85 4.22 1.47 7.56

8

9

3.36 6.49 5.32 6.41 5.25 5.01 4.80 4.99 4.54 2.18 4.65 5.02 0.79 1.75 2.23 2.78 2.70 2.00 3.96 0.70 3.90 0.70 1.70 0.70 2.90 1.38 1.01 0.97 0.70 1.00 0.70 3.79 0.70 0.70 3.08 0.70 1.60 0.70 1.36 1.38 1.04 1.36 0.70 1.78 0.70 3.77 0.70 2.23 0.70 1.30 0.70 1.30 0.70 2.08 0.00 1.02 2.43 1.48 3.75 3.81 4.97 1.60 3.18 0.70 1.48 0.70 3.16 1.66 1.32 1.27 6.15 No sample

10 4.26 4.06 3.04 4.15 2.95 3.69 0.64 3.20 4.32 3.51 4.15 0.70 3.18 1.46 3.26 3.08 4.75 4.91 1.60 3.52 1.36 3.83 2.34 2.59 3.53 1.95 2.85 0.80 3.52 2.73 2.40 3.75 2.08 2.90 0.72 6.91

Notes: Time points – 0: Before breakfast; 1: After breakfast; 2: After lunch; 3: After dinner; 4: Before breakfast the following day; SD: standard deviation

Individual site data are shown in Tables II and III and show clear increases in counts that vary with time and site. For example, in household 2, ACC and Enterobacteriaceae counts increase on the work surface at time 3: household 8 shows increased ACC and Enterobacteriaceae counts on the chopping board at times 2 and 3. Record of activities. Every household completed a record of activities as requested. The quality and amount of information provided by participants was variable. However, details of foods prepared show that all participants used raw ingredients and that with the exception of households 1 and 2 (both vegetarian) raw meat or fish was handled on at least one occasion.

Sample site Work surface

Time point

0 1 2 3 4 Mean SD Chopping board 0 1 2 3 4 Mean SD Tap handles 0 1 2 3 4 Mean SD Kettle handle 0 1 2 3 4 Mean SD Refrigerator handle 0 1 2 3 4 Mean SD Dishcloth 4

1

2

3

4

1.30 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.82 0.27 0.70 2.34 0.70 0.70 0.70 1.03 0.73 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.00 0.70 1.48 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.85 0.35 0.70 1.60 0.70 1.60 0.70 1.06 0.49 6.41

0.70 0.70 0.70 3.23 1.48 1.36 1.10 0.70 0.70 1.30 0.70 0.70 0.82 0.27 1.30 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.82 0.27 2.26 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 1.01 0.70 1.48 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.85 0.35 5.18

2.48 2.00 2.30 1.70 2.60 2.22 0.37 1.70 1.70 1.70 2.30 2.30 1.94 0.33 1.70 1.70 1.70 2.48 2.48 2.01 0.43 1.70 1.70 1.70 1.70 1.70 1.70 0.00 1.70 1.70 1.70 1.70 4.58 2.28 1.29 6.08

0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.00 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.00 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.00 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.00 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.00 4.20

Household 5 6 7 0.70 0.70 0.70 1.70 1.48 1.05 0.49 0.70 0.70 2.57 0.70 0.70 1.07 0.84 0.70 0.70 1.48 1.00 0.70 0.91 0.34 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.00 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.00 6.00

1.48 0.70 0.70 0.70 1.78 1.07 0.52 0.70 0.70 0.70 3.28 0.70 1.21 1.15 3.85 3.51 3.54 2.78 0.70 2.87 1.28 3.70 2.28 0.70 0.70 0.70 1.61 1.35 2.34 3.36 2.49 1.48 0.70 2.07 1.02 5.90

5.49 4.49 4.34 4.10 1.70 4.02 1.40 1.70 3.51 1.70 1.70 1.70 2.06 0.81 4.18 4.30 1.70 1.70 1.70 2.71 1.39 1.70 1.70 1.70 1.70 1.70 1.70 0.00 6.48 4.40 1.70 1.70 1.70 3.19 2.18 7.30

8

9

0.70 5.43 4.94 5.93 4.63 4.80 4.00 3.72 0.70 1.70 2.99 4.31 2.12 1.68 0.70 1.78 0.70 2.00 5.03 0.70 4.40 0.70 0.70 0.70 2.30 1.18 2.21 0.66 1.00 0.70 3.23 3.43 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 1.27 1.25 1.11 1.22 0.70 1.00 0.70 3.23 0.70 1.78 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.70 1.48 0.00 1.07 0.70 0.70 0.70 3.36 0.70 0.70 1.48 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.85 1.23 0.35 1.19 5.58 No sample

10 3.41 3.58 1.90 3.78 0.70 2.67 1.33 0.70 1.60 2.86 2.52 0.70 1.68 1.00 1.95 0.70 2.23 3.73 0.70 1.86 1.26 2.60 0.70 1.90 0.70 0.70 1.32 0.89 0.70 1.00 1.70 1.30 0.70 1.08 0.43 4.54

Notes: Time points – 0: Before breakfast; 1: After breakfast; 2: After lunch; 3: After dinner; 4: Before breakfast the following day; SD: standard deviation

A range of non-food activities took place: repairing a bicycle, combing children’s hair, children playing, cat in kitchen, washing pets’ water bottles. Examples of how these activities were linked to microbiological data are discussed. Discussion The domestic environment is an important source of food-borne disease (Scott, 1996; Redmond et al., 2004) and it is likely that the actual incidence is much higher than that recorded (Worsfold and Griffith, 1997). The origins of these infections are probably

Bacterial contamination

459

Table III. Log 10 Enterobacteriaceae results from all ten households

BFJ 107,7

460

Figure 1. Mean aerobic colony count from ten kitchens at five sample points over 24 hours

Figure 2. Mean Enterobacteriaceae in ten kitchens at five sample points over 24 hours

varied but could include foods, the consumer and the wide range of activities that take place in the domestic environment. The aim of this study was to investigate how levels of bacterial contamination in a domestic kitchen changes over the course of a 24-hour period when the kitchen is in normal use. Samples were taken to coincide with meal preparation because food-borne contaminants are introduced at this stage. Also, samples were collected after meal

preparation and participants recorded that they had washed up or cleared up. Thus, this information reflects levels of contamination after some cleaning had taken place and indicates the microbial status of the kitchen at the end of the food preparation event. A protocol was developed in which participants took samples from their own kitchens. This had the advantage of allowing normal operation of kitchens with no requirement to prepare a specific (perhaps unfamiliar) meal and without being observed by investigators. However, it depended upon participants accurately carrying out sampling and recording during the 24-hour period of the study. In an attempt to minimise variation, all participants received verbal and written guidance prior to the start of the study. Although participants were asked to carry out only their usual cleaning, it is possible that cleaning and other practices changed because participants were aware of the aim of the study. However, Daniels(1998) observed food safety standards in 106 households and found that 99 per cent did not meet acceptable levels even when participants were well educated, were aware of the aims of the study and were directly observed during food preparation. Consumer attitudes and behaviour are difficult to change (Redmond and Griffith, 2003) and whilst it is important to be aware of social desirability bias, this issue may be balanced by the advantages of a participant-led, home-based study. Although participants were asked to clean their kitchens prior to collecting the first samples, households 2,6,7,9 and 10 had high counts (1:2 £ 104 -3:1 £ 106 cfu ml-1) at least in some sites (work surfaces, handles of refrigerator and kettle) at the start of the 24 hours – presumably populations introduced the previous day which had remained viable, perhaps multiplied and not been removed by the initial clean. Domestic cleaning methods are variable and do little to reduce bacterial contamination (Josephson et al., 1997; Rusin et al., 1998). To achieve this, the introduction of targeted cleaning protocols using anti-microbial agents is necessary. (Josephson et al., 1997; Cogan et al., 1999). In two households (6 and 7), tap handles were contaminated at the start of the 24 hours after the initial clean. Meredith et al.(2001) comment that the most frequent contamination sites include those associated with cleaning presumably associated with cross contamination via hands and dishcloths. A total of 42 per cent of ACC increased during the day (time 0-time 3) corresponding to kitchen usage. However, comparing ACC (Table II) at time 0 (before breakfast-start of 24 hours) with those at time 4 (before breakfast 24 hours later), shows that 64 per cent of sites had lower levels of contamination at time 4. Enterobacteriaceae counts were low at most sites in households 1,2,4 and 5 but other households showed higher levels (1:7 £ 103 -. 3:0 £ 106 ) particularly on work surfaces. Mean counts from five sample sites for each household (Figures 1 and 2), demonstrate that bacterial levels varied during the day. In general, bacterial levels increased with meal preparation at time points 1 – after breakfast, and 3 – after dinner. This is as expected due to the handling and preparation of raw ingredients, particularly raw meat, reported by some households. This increase was not pronounced at time 2 – after lunch: however, eight households prepared only snacks, typically using precooked or processed ingredients (sandwiches, soup, cake) or fruit at this time and such foods do not have such high microbial levels as meat (Maguire, 1994). Households 5, 8 and 10 prepared meat-based lunches, or defrosted raw meat for later preparation and here elevated counts were recorded at some sites. Household 5 recorded defrosting beef prior to time 2 and raised

Bacterial contamination

461

BFJ 107,7

462

ACC and Enterobacteriaceae counts were recorded at this time on the work surface and chopping board. ACC and Enterobacteriaceae counts for all ten households changed over 24 hours as shown in Tables II and III. The variety of environmental conditions and consumer behaviours recorded by participants may explain these patterns. Although it was not always possible to link activities directly with changes in microbial loads, participant records showed that a wide range of non-food preparation activities took place in the kitchens investigated. These include washing hands after gardening, repairing a bicycle, disposing of household rubbish, combing children’s hair, and feeding pets. Each of these activities is capable of introducing bacterial contamination into the kitchen, and may act as a transmission route for contaminants. Although in five of the ten households, the kettle handle showed an increase in contamination levels over 24 hours this was the site with the lowest overall level of contamination. For all swab times and all households the mean ACC was 1:9 £ 103 cfuml21 ^ 7:9 £ 103 cfu ml-1, and the mean Enterobacteriaceae count was 1:7 £ 102 cfuml21 ^ 7:4 £ 103 cfu ml-1. These contaminants are likely to have been introduced via hands or cloths. The highest mean ACC was recorded on the work surface (1:8 £ 105 ^ 6:2 £ 103 cfu -1 ml ). Contaminants may be introduced via foods and cloths and this finding supports other studies that have demonstrated that the work surface can become heavily contaminated during meal preparation (Cogan et al., 1999; Humphrey et al., 1994; Haysom and Sharp, 2003). The highest mean Enterobacteriaceae count was found on the refrigerator handle (6:1 £ 104 ^ 4:2 £ 103 cfu ml-1). The refrigerator handle is used many times to open the refrigerator door during the course of the day, and is perhaps one area of the kitchen that is not regularly cleaned. This may be of concern as accumulated dirt and grime from recessed areas could pose a hygiene risk particularly for children whose smaller fingers may well reach further into the door recess than those of an adult when opening the refrigerator. For example, household 7 recorded that the swab taken at Time 0 appeared dirty and was taken from a recessed handle: this is reflected in the counts from that site (. 3:0 £ 106 for ACC and Enterobacteriaceae counts). In this study, chopping boards showed mean levels of ACC and Enterobacteriaceae at 2:6 £ 103 ^ 5:4 £ 103 cfu ml- and 2:7 £ 103 ^ 1:5 £ 104 cfu ml- In addition, this site most frequently showed increased counts during the study; (70 per cent boards showed increased ACCs between time 0 and time 3 and 40 per cent showed increased ACCs at time 4). Barker et al. (2003) showed that bacteria were readily transferred to chopping boards during the preparation of chicken. It was shown that a simple bowl wash with detergent reduced the number of contaminated food contact surfaces by 3.4 per cent. In contrast, a bowl wash with detergent, followed by a rinse and disinfection with 5,000 ppm hypochlorite bleach for one minute reduced the number of contaminated food contact surfaces by 93.4 per cent. This indicates that a typical domestic wash is unlikely to eliminate the board as a source of contamination. In household 6, the chopping board was removed from an overnight dishwasher cycle at time 0, yet it still showed a TVC of 210 cfu g-1. This indicates that the dishwasher cycle was not effective at killing all contaminants on the chopping board. Boards that are pitted and scored have been shown to harbour contamination that may cross contaminate foods placed on the board (Miller et al. 1996).

Dishcloths may act as habitats for microbes and counts as high as 1:0 £ 108 per cloth have been recorded (Scott and Bloomfield, 1993; Sharp and Parkinson, 1999). The ACC and Enterobacteriaceae count for dishcloths after the 24 hours of this study were high (4:0 £ 107 ^ 4:4 £ 107 cfu ml-1 and 2:9 £ 106 ^ 6:5 £ 106 cfu ml-1 respectively) in all households. Participants recorded the use of cloths to wipe surfaces, chopping boards and hands and these activities have been shown to lead to cross-contamination (Scott and Bloomfield, 1990, 1993). These results indicate that bacterial levels do increase and decrease in domestic kitchens over a 24-hour period, and that increases appear to correspond with food preparation. The subsequent fall may be accounted for by cleaning, or possibly the death of contaminants due to the desiccation of their immediate environment. However, it has been demonstrated that bacteria are able to remain viable in small spots of dried food debris (Humphrey et al., 1994). The implications of these results for cleaning in the kitchen are that the most important time is immediately after food has been prepared, with attention focussing on high-risk areas such as the work surface, chopping board and taps. Results confirm previous findings (Scott and Bloomfield, 1990; Cogan et al., 1999) and provide evidence of cross contamination, particularly from hands to other surfaces. Sites such as the refrigerator handle, kettle handle and taps, which generally only come into contact with hands, showed peaks in contamination levels. It has been shown that hands can act as vehicles of cross-contamination during the preparation of a meal from raw chicken (De Boer and Hahne, 1990; Cogan et al., 1999; Haysom and Sharp, 2003). If the areas that come into contact with the hands are not regularly cleaned they pose a cross contamination risk to subsequent handlers. Although the sample size was small, there was a difference in both ACC and Enterobacteriaceae counts between totally vegetarian households and those that ate meat, fish or poultry. Of the seven meat-eating households, five ate meals prepared using raw meat and two families ate cured or fermented meat products. Meat and meat products are known to have higher bacterial loads than foods of vegetable origin (Maguire, 1994). Meat products naturally contain Enterobacteriaceae at levels much higher than vegetable products. It would be of value to test more households to evaluate the risk associated with preparing meals from raw meat. This study shows that levels of bacterial contamination in a domestic kitchen vary during the day, and that contamination levels increase with meal preparation. However, as only five sets of swabs were taken during the course of the 24-hour experiment, and three of these were taken around meal times, this effect may have been given undue importance. A more accurate picture of fluctuations in kitchen contamination levels would be achieved if samples were taken at more frequent intervals. In order to assess the causes of changes in microbial load at various sites, a more detailed record of participant activities would be needed. This would be difficult for the participant to achieve without interrupting activities taking place and in the present study, records were used to inform the interpretation of microbiological data. Video studies achieve this detail (Jay et al., 1999), but the presence of a video camera may influence consumer behaviour. Further studies are needed to help to plan targeted cleaning which concentrates on areas that pose the greatest risk of harbouring or spreading bacterial contamination around the kitchen. Guidance could be taken from commercial situations in which food

Bacterial contamination

463

BFJ 107,7

464

premises are expected to implement a regimented cleaning programme in which food preparation surfaces would be cleaned several times a day (Gibson et al., 1999). Once introduced to the kitchen, contaminants may survive and proliferate in dirt and food debris. The source of these contaminants is varied because domestic kitchens are used for a wide range of activities. The role of effective cleaning is important in preventing these activities from contributing to domestic outbreaks of gastrointestinal illness. However, it may be difficult to convince the consumer that this is needed (Redmond and Griffith, 2003). The present study emphasises the difficulty of devising a simple, targeted cleaning regime because levels of bacterial contamination change due to the variable nature of food and non-food related events that occur in domestic kitchens. References Barker, J., Naeeni, M. and Bloomfield, S.F. (2003), “The effects of cleaning and disinfection in reducing Salmonella contamination in a laboratory model kitchen”, Journal of Applied Microbiology, Vol. 95 No. 6, pp. 1351-60. British Standards Institute (1991), Microbiological Examination of Food and Animal Feeding Stuffs. Part 1. Enumeration of Micro-organisms – Colony Count Technique at 308C, BSI Standards BS5763:Part 1: (ISO4833:1991), British Standards Institute, London. British Standards Institute (1993), Microbiological Examination of Food and Animal Feeding Stuffs. Part 10. Enumeration of Enterobacteriaceae, BSE Standards BS5763: Part 10: ISO7402:1993, British Standards Institute, London. Brown, M.H., Davies, K.W., Billon, C.M.P., Adair, C. and McClure, P.J. (1998), “Quantitative microbial risk assessment principles applied to determining the comparative risk of salmonellosis from chicken products”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 61, pp. 1446-53. Cogan, T.A., Bloomfield, S.F. and Humphrey, T.J. (1999), “The effectiveness of hygiene procedures for prevention of cross-contamination from chicken carcases in the domestic kitchen”, Letters in Applied Microbiology, Vol. 29 No. 5, pp. 354-8. Daniels, R. (1998), “Home food safety”, Food Technology, Vol. 52 No. 2, pp. 54-6. Davis, J.G., Blake, J.R. and Woodall, C.M. (1968), “A survey of the hygienic condition of domestic dish-cloths and tea towels”, The Medical Officer, Vol. 120, pp. 29-32. Dawkins, H.C., Bolton, F.J. and Hutchinson, D.N. (1984), “A study of the spread of Campylobacter jejuni in four large kitchens”, Journal of Hygiene, Cambridge, Vol. 92, pp. 357-64. De Boer, E. and Hahne, M. (1990), “Cross-contamination with Campylobacter jejuni and Salmonella spp. from raw chicken products during food preparation”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 53, pp. 1067-8. De Wit, J.C., Broekhuizen, G. and Kampelmacher, E.H. (1979), “Cross-contamination during the preparation of frozen chickens in the kitchen”, Journal of Hygiene, Cambridge, Vol. 83 No. 1, pp. 27-32. Eginton, P.J., Holah, J., Allison, D.G., Handley, P.S. and Gilbert, P. (1998), “Changes in the strength of attachment of micro-organisms to surfaces following treatment with disinfectants and cleansing agents”, Letters in Applied Microbiology, Vol. 27 No. 2, pp. 101-5. Gibson, H., Taylor, J.H., Hall, K.E. and Holah, J.T. (1999), “Effectiveness of cleaning techniques used in the food industry in terms of removal of bacterial biofilms”, Journal of Applied Microbiology, Vol. 87, pp. 41-8.

Gilbert, R.J. (1969), “Cross-contamination by cooked-meat slicing machines and cleaning cloths”, Journal of Hygiene, Cambridge, Vol. 67, pp. 249-54. Gorman, R., Bloomfield, S. and Adley, C.C. (2002), “A study of cross contamination of foodborne pathogens in the domestic kitchen in the Republic of Ireland”, International Journal of Food Microbiology, Vol. 76, pp. 143-50. Haysom, I.W. and Sharp, A.K. (2003), “Cross-contamination from raw chicken during meal preparation”, British Food Journal, Vol. 106 No. 1, pp. 38-50. Health Protection Agency (2005), available at: www.hpa.org.uk/infections/topics_az/noids/ food-poisoning.htm (accessed 4 April 2005). Humphrey, T.J., Martin, K.W. and Whitehead, A. (1994), “Contamination of hands and work surfaces with Salmonella enteritidis PT4 during preparation of egg dishes”, Epidemiology and Infection, Vol. 113 No. 3, pp. 403-9. Humphrey, T.J., Martin, K.W., Slader, J. and Durham, K. (2001), “Campylobacter spp. in the kitchen: spread and persistence”, Journal of Applied Microbiology, Vol. 90 No. 6, pp. 115S-20S. Jay, L.S., Comar, D. and Govenlock, L.D. (1999), “A video study of Australian domestic food-handling practices”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 62 No. 11, pp. 1285-96. Josephson, K.L., Rubino, J.R. and Pepper, I.L. (1997), “Characterization and quantification of bacterial pathogens and indicator organisms in household kitchens with and without the use of a disinfectant cleaner”, Journal of Applied Microbiology, Vol. 83 No. 6, pp. 737-50. Mackintosh, C.A. and Hoffman, P.N. (1984), “An extended model for transfer of micro-organisms via the hands: differences between organisms and the effect of alcohol disinfection”, Journal of Hygiene, Cambridge, Vol. 92 No. 2, pp. 345-55. Maguire, K. (1994), “Perceptions of meat and food: some implications for health promotion strategies”, British Food Journal, Vol. 96 No. 2, pp. 11-17. Meredith, L., Lewis, R. and Haslum, M. (2001), “Contributing factors to the spread of contamination in a model kitchen”, British Food Journal, Vol. 103 No. 1, pp. 23-35. Miller, A.J., Brown, T. and Call, J.E. (1996), “Comparison of wooden and polyethylene cutting boards: potential for the attachment and removal of bacteria from ground beef”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 59 No. 8, pp. 854-8. Pether, J.V.S. and Gilbert, R.J. (1971), “The survival of salmonellas on finger-tips and transfer of the organisms to foods”, Journal of Hygiene, Cambridge, Vol. 69, pp. 673-81. Redmond, E.C. and Griffith, C.J. (2003), “Consumer food handling in the home: a review of consumer food safety studies”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 66, pp. 130-61. Redmond, E.C., Griffith, C.J., Slader, J. and Humphrey, T. (2004), “Microbiological and observational analysis of cross contamination risks during domestic food preparation”, British Food Journal, Vol. 101 No. 6, pp. 581-97. Rusin, P., Orosz-Coughlin, P. and Gerba, P. (1998), “Reduction of faecal coliform, coliform and heterotrophic plate count bacteria in the household kitchen and bathroom by disinfection with hypochlorite cleaners”, Journal of Applied Microbiology, Vol. 85, pp. 819-28. Scott, E. (1996), “Foodborne disease and other hygiene issues in the home”, Journal of Applied Bacteriology, Vol. 80, pp. 5-9. Scott, E. and Bloomfield, S.F. (1990), “The survival and transfer of microbial contamination via cloths, hands and utensils”, Journal of Applied Bacteriology, Vol. 68, pp. 271-8. Scott, E. and Bloomfield, S.F. (1993), “An in-use study of the relationship between bacterial contamination of food preparation surfaces and cleaning cloths”, Letters in Applied Microbiology, Vol. 16, pp. 173-7.

Bacterial contamination

465

BFJ 107,7

466

Sharp, A.K. and Parkinson, R.P. (1999), “A comparison of the growth of gram positive and gram negative food-poisoning bacteria on a variety of domestic dish cloths”, Consumer Science Research, Vol. 18, pp. 21-4. Spiers, J.P., Anderton, A. and Anderson, J.G. (1995), “A study of the microbial content of the domestic kitchen”, International Journal of Environmental Health Research, Vol. 5, pp. 109-22. Worsfold, D. and Griffith, C.J. (1996), “An assessment of cleanliness in domestic kitchens”, Hygiene and Nutrition in Foodservice and Catering, Vol. 1, pp. 163-73. Worsfold, D. and Griffith, C.J. (1997), “Food safety behaviour in the home”, British Food Journal, Vol. 99 No. 3, pp. 97-104. Zhao, P., Zhoa, T., Doyle, M.P., Rubino, J.R. and Meng, J. (1998), “Development of a model for evaluation of microbial cross contamination in the kitchen”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 1, pp. 960-3.

The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0007-070X.htm

Consumer perceptions of food safety education sources Implications for effective strategy development

Consumer perceptions of food safety 467

Elizabeth C. Redmond and Christopher J. Griffith Food Research and Consultancy Unit, University of Wales Institute Cardiff, Cardiff, UK Abstract Purpose – Consumers often use inappropriate food-handling practices and improving these could help to reduce the incidence of foodborne disease. However the development of an effective food safety education strategy is considered complex and could be improved by having a greater understanding of the consumer. This paper proposes investigating the modes and channels of communication that maybe used in education strategies. Design/methodology/approach – A self-complete postal questionnaire was distributed to a linked demographic quota of adults in South Wales. Responses were entered into a specially constructed food safety database. Findings – Results indicated that the Environmental Health departments and UK Food Standards Agency were perceived to be the most trusted and credible organisations that can provide food safety information. The most believable spokespersons for promotion of food safety advice were determined as Environmental Health officers and the Chief Medical Officer. The most preferred source of food safety information identified were food packaging, followed by advice from a medical doctor. Research limitations/implications – Although only a relatively small sample size, many of the findings have been corroborated by qualitative data from nationwide focus groups. The data have been used as the precursor for a large nationwide study of over 2,000 consumers and this should further validate the data. Originality/value – The results will be of benefit to a range of organisations currently engaged in food safety education as well as identifying potentially underutilised channels of communication. Keywords Food safety, Education, Risk management, Communication, Wales Paper type Research paper

Introduction The increased incidence of foodborne disease over the past 20 years has generated a substantial social and economic burden on society. Research has identified significant microbiological risks associated with poor consumer food-handling behaviours (Redmond and Griffith, 2003; Redmond et al. 2004). Such risks are known to contribute to the incidence of foodborne disease. Therefore, effective consumer food safety education strategies are required to reduce the prevalence of unsafe behaviours used during food preparation in the home. Behavioural scientists have stated that “human beings are not empty vessels in which correct information can simply be poured which in turn will eliminate undesirable customs” (Foster and Kaferstein, 1985). For communication to have the desired impact a whole chain of responses needs to be elicited (McGuire, 1984). The development of community-based interventions for food safety initiatives is a complex process, requiring

British Food Journal Vol. 107 No. 7, 2005 pp. 467-483 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0007-070X DOI 10.1108/00070700510606882

BFJ 107,7

468

the provision of information for a variety of target audiences in different settings. Diverse strategies are required for different groups of consumers, each having their own related social and environmental influences and food preparation practices (Campbell et al., 1998). One of the most important determinants of consumer reactions to food risk information is the extent to which the public trusts the source from which the information originates (Frewer et al. 1995; Shepherd et al. 1996). People are unlikely to change their attitudes or behaviour if they do not trust the source of information (Frewer et al. 1996), and information from a credible source is more likely to influence the public (FAO/WHO, 1998). For example, a scientist or other health care worker may seem the ideal source of public health information, however, a community activist or layperson affected by the disease may carry more credibility and have a greater public impact (Freimuth et al., 2000). A source low in credibility may be discounted and have limited or no impact, whereas a highly credible source is likely to be more influential (Griffin et al., 1991). Better education depends on a better understanding of the modes and channels of communication that people actually use (Khare, 1988; WHO, 1988). Of importance for food safety education is the message and the manner in which the message is communicated to and received by the public (Griffith et al., 1994). Traditionally, approaches to food safety education have been mainly “expert driven” and largely based on the provision of standardised materials. Communication of messages has essentially involved widespread distribution of knowledge based information using the mass media directed at large numbers of people (Freimuth et al., 2000). Although knowledge of the consequences of unsafe food-handling practices can enhance consumer motivation to change behaviour (Bruhn, 1997), research has established that provision of knowledge does not necessarily translate into practice (Ackerley, 1994; Curtis et al., 1993; Nichols et al., 1988; Pinfold, 1999). To date, public communication campaigns to encourage adoption of safe food-handling practices have had minimal success (Kretzer and Larson, 1998) and it has been suggested that the future of hygiene promotion should be based on the analysis of the specific needs of the target audience (Rennie, 1995). A contemporary approach to structured behavioural change for health education initiatives has been the application of social marketing to a variety of public health-related disciplines (Andreason, 1995) including consumer food safety (Redmond et al., 2000; Redmond, 2002; FSES et al., 2001). Use of the social marketing approach facilitates the development of a consumer-oriented strategy whereby the needs and wants of consumers are actively sought and acted upon in programme planning, management and evaluation. Channels and sources generally used for public communication of food safety issues include a variety of formats such as television, radio, posters, leaflets, newspapers, cookery books, magazines and reminder aids. Although limited research has been conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of different intervention types the potential effectiveness of different media is reported to vary considerably, despite having common characteristics (Tones and Tilford, 1996). The production and distribution of leaflets is considered to be a mainstay of health education and promotion activities (Fraser and Smith, 1997) however, the effectiveness of communication using written information in the form of leaflets has been widely discussed (Paul and Redman, 1997). The effectiveness of other sources of food safety information utilised for health education purposes, such as posters, newsletters, recipes and reminder aids has not been as widely researched. Consumer perceptions of, and preferences for, different food safety interventions are likely to affect the potential effectiveness of a consumer food safety education strategy,

however, to date, limited research has been undertaken. A review of 65 consumer food safety studies (from the UK, Ireland, the USA and Australia) found that less than 25 per cent of surveys evaluated source preference (Redmond, 2002). This paper aims to examine factors that influence the efficacy of food risk communication and investigate consumer preferences for sources and methods of food safety information. Method A self-complete questionnaire was designed to examine consumer preferences for different sources of food safety education interventions and assess the perceived credibility of organisations and spokespersons that are known to deliver and promote food safety information to consumers. In addition, the questionnaire was designed to be a precursor of a larger nationwide survey (n ¼ 2; 000) which aimed to investigate consumer perceptions of food safety education in the UK and inform strategy development for future food safety initiatives. To facilitate the development of the questionnaire, health education and health promotion literature were reviewed. Common intervention materials, frequent providers of information and key concepts influencing the efficacy of food safety communication used in previous initiatives were identified and formed the basis of questions (Redmond, 2002). Questions included in the questionnaire rated perceptions of food safety leaflets, television documentaries and cookery programmes, preferable sources of food safety information, spokespersons who promote food safety advice in terms of believability and the credibility and trustworthiness of organisations and institutions who provide food safety information. Responses were assessed on a variation of a Likert-type visual analogue scale (VAS) (Bowling, 2000) which was bounded by adjectives (e.g. “most preferable source” and “least preferable source”). Numerical values (from 1 to 10) were displayed at both ends of the scale as well as regular intervals along each line. Respondents were required to circle a number along each line to indicate how strongly they felt about each of the given statements. During the developmental stages of the questionnaire, pilot testing was carried out using recommended procedures (Breakwell et al., 1995). The questionnaire was administered by post to 100 consumers recruited by a local Market Research Agency. Recruited consumers represented a linked demographic quota of adults aged .16 years from Cardiff, South Wales, UK, from all socio-economic groups (SEGs) based on UK Census data (ONS, 1997). The questionnaire was sent to respondents with a covering letter and prepaid addressed envelope. Respondents were offered a supermarket incentive to return a completed questionnaire within one month of administration. Follow-up telephone calls were made and reminder letters were sent to respondents at intervals after the initial survey had been distributed. A response rate of 61 per cent was attained, and responses were obtained from consumers from all SEGs and age groups. All responses were anonymous and findings were entered onto a specially constructed consumer food safety database (Microsoft Access ’97). Data analysis was carried out using SPSS (Version 9.0) and Microsoft Excel ’97 and responses were evaluated using descriptive and inferential statistics. For the descriptive analysis, proportions of respondents who indicated values 1 to 3 (representing, e.g. a high degree of preference) and values 8 to 10 (representing, e.g. a low degree of preference) were calculated. Median values were calculated to indicate central tendency and were used as the main determinants of rank. For the inferential statistical analysis, Spearmans rank correlation coefficient (rho) (two-tailed) was used to identify correlations between ranked

Consumer perceptions of food safety 469

BFJ 107,7

responses. Similarly, correlations between ranked data, age group and SEG were also identified using Spearmans rho (r). Differences between male and female responses were identified using the Mann Whitney U test (Z score). Alpha levels determined for all multiple comparisons in the analyses to identify statistical significance were corrected using Bonferroni correction (Norman and Streiner, 2000; Bland, 2002).

470

Results Exposure to food safety information sources To determine familiarity and exposure to food safety information, respondents were asked to identify what sources they remembered encountering in the previous six months. Results are presented in Table I. Food safety information on food packaging was encountered by the largest number of respondents, followed by magazine articles and television cookery programmes. Sources encountered by the fewest respondents included information from universities, posters, magnets and tea-towels. Further analysis of these findings showed that 15 per cent respondents had encountered none of the listed sources of food safety information, 25 per cent had “seen” one to two sources, 41 per cent had “seen” three to four sources, 16 per cent had “seen” five to six sources and 3 per cent had “seen” seven to eight sources. Preference for food safety information sources Preference for food safety information sources are presented in Table II. Overall, positive responses were given to many of the potential sources. The most preferred

Table I. Sample exposure to food safety information sources (n ¼ 61)

Consumer perceptions of food safety 471

Table II. Preference for different food safety information sources

BFJ 107,7

472

sources of food safety information (by 64 per cent of respondents) included food packaging and advice from a medical doctor or health visitor. Other preferred sources included leaflets, television documentaries, recipes and television cookery programmes. The least preferred sources (by 39-43 per cent of respondents) were reminder aids such as fridge magnets and tea-towels. To maximise effective placement of food safety information for consumers, preferences for listed information sources have been correlated with each other. Results have identified nine positive Spearmans rho correlations (p , 0:01). The strongest of the correlations was determined between fridge magnets and tea-towels as sources for food safety advice, (r ¼ 0:910, p , 0:01). Further analysis of the data indicates these sources were not a preferred option of food safety information by the majority of respondents. Another particularly strong correlation includes promotion of advice from “the family” with advice from “friends” (r ¼ 0:811, p , 0:01). Other significant correlations noted were: posters and food packaging (p , 0:01, r ¼ 0:494); recipes and food packaging (p , 0:01, r ¼ 0:493); posters and advice from medical doctors, health visitors (p , 0:01, r ¼ 0:477); advice from friends and radio programmes (p , 0:01, r ¼ 0:466). .

Trust of food safety information provided from different organisations and institutions Cumulatively, results suggest that consumers generally trust most of the UK providers of food safety advice listed in this study. Data presented in Table III indicate that Environmental Health departments and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) were perceived as the most trustworthy providers of credible information. On the other hand, information provided from government authorities and supermarkets were ranked as least trustworthy, providing less credible information. Correlations between perceived credibility and trustworthiness of different organisations are found in Table IV. In total, 29 Spearmans rho correlation coefficients were identified (p , 0:01) between organisations and institutions. The most significant correlation was determined between Environmental Health departments and the FSA (r ¼ 0:738, p , 0:01). Information found in Table IV could be used to determine potential partnerships for dissemination of food safety information to consumers in the UK. Likelihood of believing food safety information promoted by different spokespersons Perceived likelihood of believing food safety information promoted by different spokespersons is presented in Table V. The spokesperson most likely to be believed was an Environmental Health officer (EHO), followed by the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and a medical doctor. Spokespersons least likely to be believed included politicians and television personalities. Cumulatively, data show that more positive responses were obtained than negative, indicating that in general, consumers are more likely to believe food safety advice delivered by the listed spokespersons rather than not. To maximise effectual delivery of food safety information promoted by different spokespersons significant (p , 0:01) correlations between responses have been determined. A total of 39 positive correlations (p , 0:01) have been identified and results are presented in Table VI. The most significant correlation determined (r ¼ 0:761, p , 0:01) was between the likelihood of believing information presented by an EHO and the CMO.

Consumer perceptions of food safety 473

Table III. Trustworthiness of providers of food safety information

BFJ 107,7

474 Table IV. Correlations between perceived trustworthiness of providers of food safety information

EH depts FSA HEA HPU MC PSC CHA FDF SM GA

EH depts

FSA

HEA

HPU

MC

PSC

1.000 0.738** 0.764** 0.452** 0.623** 0.415** 0.174 0.477** 0.361* 0.259

1.000 0.694** 0.667** 0.574** 0.467** 0.143 0.448** 0.201 0.466**

1.000 0.533** 0.642** 0.417** 0.249 0.416** 0.284 0.450**

1.000 0.397* 0.494** 0.365* 0.513** 0.207 0.372

1.000 0.585** 0.418** 0.524** 0.275 0.539**

1.000 0.527** 0.731** 0.341 0.418**

CHA

FDF

SM

GA

1.000 0.472** 1.000 0.280 0.442** 1.000 0.407** 0.392* 0.293 1.000

Notes: * p , 0:05; ** p , 0:01; EH depts ¼ Environmental Health departments; FSA ¼ Food Standards Agency; HEA ¼ Health Education Authority; HPU ¼ Health Promotion Unit; MC ¼ Medical Council; PSC ¼ Product specific councils; CHA ¼ Commercial Hygiene Advisory; FDF ¼ Food and Drink Federation; SM ¼ Supermarkets; GA ¼ Government authorities

Leaflets as a source of food safety information Of the sample, 52 per cent indicated that they had picked up leaflets in the past, but only 10 per cent of the sample recalled receiving a food safety leaflet posted through the door. Of the respondents who indicated that they had picked a leaflet up, 58 per cent reported themselves extremely likely or likely to read the leaflet. No respondents who reported themselves likely pick a leaflet up indicated that they were unlikely to read it. Data in Table VII indicate the perceived likelihood of picking up a food safety leaflet. The locations where leaflets are most likely picked up from were identified as the supermarket and in magazines and newspapers. Least likely locations included schools and colleges and Environmental Health departments. The majority of median values ranged from 4 to 5, indicating that likelihood of picking leaflets up from all listed locations was not high. The use of Spearmans rho identified 12 significant correlations (p , 0:05) between locations where food safety leaflets may be picked up. The most significant correlations identified include the following: dentists and doctors surgery (r ¼ 0:655; p , 0:01); magazines and supermarkets (r ¼ 0:596, p , 0:01); magazines and the library (r ¼ 0:558; p , 0:01): library and doctors surgery (r ¼ 0:563; p , 0:01); the library and supermarkets (r ¼ 0:530; p , 0:01); Environmental Health departments and schools/colleges (r ¼ 0:506, p , 0:01). Such information could be used for strategic placement of leaflets to maximise intervention reach. Perceptions of television documentaries and cookery programmes as sources of food safety information In this study, 97 per cent of respondents indicated that they watch television cookery programmes and nearly half of such respondents stated that they have watched between four and six cookery shows presented on UK television. In comparison, only one-third of respondents stated they had previously watched a television documentary about food safety issues, and the majority of such respondents were unable to recall the name of the documentaries they had seen. A marginally larger proportion of consumers (63 per cent) indicated they were extremely likely or likely to watch a television cookery programme compared to a documentary on food safety (52 per cent).

Consumer perceptions of food safety 475

Table V. Determination of the likelihood of respondents believing a variety of spokespersons who promote food safety information

Table VI. Correlations between the likelihood of believing food safety information promoted by different spokepersons

1.000 0.761** 0.543** 0.526** 0.409* 0.497** 0.446 0.373* 0.493** 0.439** 0.065 0.327 0.302 0.147 0.091 1.000 0.604** 0.530** 0.628** 0.594** 0.618** 0.337* 0.555** 0.527** 0.211 0.395* 0.245 0.214 0.357

CMO

1.000 0.581** 0.520** 0.519** 0.462** 0.294 0.597** 0.425** 0.111 0.220 0.214 0.248 0.112

MD

1.000 0.383* 0.478** 0.432** 0.364 0.490** 0.370* 0.164 0.331 0.436* 0.351 0.263

HE

1.000 0.557** 0.552** 0.327 0.573** 0.547** 0.244 0.228 0.120 0.235 0.362

S

1.000 0.649** 0.446** 0.710** 0.509** 0.170 0.425** 0.217 0.330* 0.220

HV

1.000 0.198 0.601** 0.514** 0.124 0.320 0.157 0.238 0.091

N

1.000 0.258 0.152 0.158 0.423** 0.087 0.101 0.169

TC

1.000 0.674** 0.042 0.296 0.257 0.407* 0.169

MW

1.000 0.088 0.278 0.321 0.297 0.339

ST

1.000 0.323 0.274 0.267 0.455**

NR

F

TVP

P

1.000 0.515** 1.000 0.437** 0.671** 1.000 0.362 0.336 0.352 1.000

SA/M

Notes: * p , 0:05; ** p , 0:01; EHO ¼ Environmental Health officer; CMO ¼ Chief Medical Officer; MD ¼ Medical Doctor; HE ¼ Health Educator; S ¼ Scientist; HV ¼ Health visitor; N ¼ Nurse; TC ¼ Television chef; MW ¼ Midwife; ST ¼ School teacher; NR ¼ Newsreader; SA=M ¼ Shop assistant/manager; F ¼ Farmer; TVP ¼ Television personality; P ¼ Politician

EHO CMO MD HE S HV N TC MW ST NR SA/M F TVP P

EHO

476

Spokesperson

BFJ 107,7

Consumer perceptions of food safety 477

Table VII. Likely locations for picking up food safety leaflets

BFJ 107,7

478

A significant positive correlation (r ¼ 0:493, p , 0:01) was identified between likelihood of watching both types of television programmes. The majority (91 per cent) of respondents in this study thought that television chefs should demonstrate good food safety practices and nearly half (44 per cent) of these respondents thought their home food preparation behaviours had been influenced by food safety habits shown on television cookery programmes. When asked to rate food safety behaviours of television chefs, 88 per cent of respondents considered that such practices were “good” or “average”. Only 8 per cent of respondents thought food safety behaviours were “excellent” and 3 per cent thought practices were “poor”. Discussion Consumer education concerning risks and correct domestic food-handling behaviours is important for the reduction of foodborne disease incidence, and the UK FSA is currently developing a consumer-oriented food safety education strategy to improve food hygiene in the home. Identification of consumer preferences for information may be of benefit for the development of effective communication strategies and raising risk awareness. The consumer-oriented approach of social marketing provides a framework for tailored communication strategies to be developed for specific consumer audiences. Previous research has suggested that different groups of consumers respond to food safety information in different ways (WHO, 2000) and targeted interventions can be more effective for bringing about desirable behavioural change (Andreason, 1995). The most preferred source of food safety information identified was food packaging and reported exposure to this source of advice also was widespread. However, previous research has suggested that food safety advice on packaging of raw meat in the USA is not an effective method for improving food safety behaviours in the home (Yang et al. 2000). Observations of domestic food-handling behaviours showed that consumers frequently touch the inside of raw chicken packaging (Redmond et al., 2004). Concerns have been expressed about the external contamination of packaging (Burgess et al., 2005) and more than one-third of internal raw meat packaging was found to be contaminated with pathogens such as Campylobacter and Salmonella (Harrison et al., 2001). The placement of instructions on the inside of raw meat packaging, as is often the case, could therefore increase the risk of microbial cross contamination during handling. Food safety advice on packaging should be easily visible before opening, simple and reading the instructions should require no additional handling actions. In this study, food safety advice from a medical doctor or health visitor was also considered to be a preferred source of information. However, reported exposure to food safety advice from a medical doctor or health visitor was limited. Given that medical doctors and health visitors were ranked as believable spokespersons for the promotion of food safety information, it may be beneficial for such sources to be more proactive regarding the provision of food safety advice to consumers in future educational strategies. Furthermore, placement of food safety information in medical waiting rooms may be of benefit as consumers may spend considerable time in them with little else to do (Redmond et al., 2001). Least preferred sources of food safety information included reminder aids such as fridge magnets and tea-towels; such sources had previously been encountered by only one respondent. This may reflect lack of use in the locality, rather than a general dislike for the type of educational aid. Perceived disfavour from this study does not correspond with previous focus group findings whereby targeted sub-groups of

consumers have responded positively to visual presentation of reminder aids such as magnets used for promoting food safety information (Redmond et al. 2000; Redmond et al. 2001; Li-Cohen et al. 2002). Consumer responses in focus groups indicated that such reminder aids were novel and useful as a constant reminder to implement safe food preparation behaviours. Indeed, key interventions for the ongoing nationwide US Fight-Bacw food safety initiative are fridge magnets (Partnership for Food Safety Education, 2002) and previous research has shown that use of strategically placed reminders to aid hand-washing compliance in hospitals can help to improve behavioural compliance (Naikoba and Haywood, 2001). Research has shown that use of multiple channels and sources of information may increase potential effectiveness of educational initiatives (Bruhn and Schultz, 1999). Findings from this study showed that correlations between consumer perceptions of different sources of food safety information exist and such information should be used to aid effectual placement of interventions in strategies where multiple information sources are used. Credibility and trust of spokespersons and organisations that promote food safety information The public does not equally trust all sources of information about food safety (FAO/WHO, 1998) and trust of information about food-related hazards may be an important determinant of public reaction to risk information (Frewer et al., 1995; Shepherd et al., 1996). Indeed, it is considered that trust of information may be as an important determinant for effectiveness of information as the content of information itself (Frewer et al., 1996). It is generally considered that if the public does not trust the source of the information, they will not believe the message (Groth, 1991). Factors that enhance trust and credibility include public perceptions of the communicators concern for public welfare, and extent and accuracy of their knowledge (FAO/WHO, 1998). Results from this study have shown that food safety information provided from EHOs and the CMO were the spokespersons most likely to be believed for conveying food safety information to consumers. In addition, perceptions of both spokespersons were positively correlated with one another. Therefore, future food safety initiatives in the UK may benefit from the promotion of advice from both spokespersons and thus, potentially improve reach, receptivity and credibility of the intended message. Credibility is related to trust and is defined as “believable or being worthy of belief” (Allen, 1990). Corresponding with findings denoting EHOs as believable spokespersons, results have also indicated that Environmental Health departments were the most trustworthy and credible of listed organisations that provide food safety information. Other research has indicated that 81 per cent consumers report that they would use Environmental Health departments to obtain information about food safety (Mathias, 1999). However, despite such positive perceptions and intentions of EHOs and Environmental Health departments, such a location in practice is rarely approached for consumer food safety advice (Griffith et al. 1994; Mathias, 1999). Thus, it is suggested that Environmental Health departments and EHOs become more accessible to consumers and assume a more proactive role in future consumer-oriented home food safety education strategies. The Food and Drink Federation (FDF) was one of the least trusted organisations listed in this study. Recent focus group findings of a cross-section of the population in the UK however, suggest that a lack of familiarity with commercial or trade organisations was frequently equated with lack of trust. Findings also indicate that food safety intervention materials produced by the FDF were cumulatively the most preferred

Consumer perceptions of food safety 479

BFJ 107,7

480

interventions produced in the UK in terms of design and content. This highlights the mutual benefit for organisations such as the FDF to collaborate with Environmental Health departments for provision of food handling information for consumers in the UK. Materials produced by the latter were often not rated lightly for design and content although they were perceived as trustworthy. Previous research has shown that Members of Parliament or government ministers are not trusted due to perceptions of distortion of the facts, having a vested interest and concern with self-protection (Frewer et al. 1996). Results from this study support such findings, as politicians were the spokespersons least likely to be believed for the promotion of food safety information. Previous research has indicated that governments do not generate high levels of trust as a source of information about food safety (Finn and Louviere, 1992). This concurs with findings from this study where government authorities were ranked the least trustworthy and least credible providers of food safety information. However, despite this the FSA was ranked as one of the most trusted and credible of the listed organisations. The FSA was established in the UK in April 2000, and has close government links. When considering findings of this study, it can be assumed that the key characteristics of the FSA, being to put the consumer first, to be open and accessible and to be an independent voice (FSA, 2000) have been successfully communicated to the public. Results from this study bode well for the national consumer food safety education initiatives intended for the general population by the FSA (2002) to increase food safety awareness, improve food safety behaviours and help achieve a reduction of foodborne disease. Food safety leaflets as a source for food safety information One of the simplest and most frequently used methods for attempting to facilitate behavioural change is through the provision of information leaflets (Bennett and Murphy, 1999). However, such behavioural change is likely to occur when the consumer is motivated to do so. In this study, responses indicating likely locations for obtaining food safety leaflets were relatively weak or negative and less than a third of respondents self-reported picking up and reading such a food safety intervention. The supermarket was ranked as the most likely location where food safety leaflets would be picked up. However, although supermarkets are a convenient location for placement of this sort of intervention, results indicate that such locations are not perceived to be a credible or trustworthy source of food safety information. This concurs with findings from Frewer et al. (1996) who reported consumer distrust for consumer information supplied from supermarkets. Although the Environmental Health department was ranked as the most trusted and credible food safety information provider, it was also ranked as the second most unlikely location where food safety leaflets would be obtained by consumers. Such findings question the effectiveness of leaflets as a source for food safety information and reflect concerns of many health professionals who are unconvinced that leaflets are effective for increasing knowledge or changing behaviour (Bennett and Murphy, 1999). Television documentaries and cookery programmes as sources for food safety information Television has been a channel of communication for health education issues and has been consistently shown to reinforce existing behaviour and raise awareness but have little or no effect on actual behavioural change (Bennett and Murphy, 1999). The present study indicates that consumers who are likely to watch a television documentary on food safety are positively associated with those likely to watch television cookery programmes. Overall,

the majority of consumers reported themselves to watch television cookery programmes, however, the safety of food-handling practices demonstrated by television chefs on such cookery programmes has been analysed and considered to be unsatisfactory (Griffith et al., 1994; Mathiasen et al., 2003). This raises concerns, as 44 per cent of consumers from this survey thought that their home food safety habits had been influenced by cookery programmes. Such programmes may present a beneficial placement opportunity for food hygiene education whereby safe food preparation practices can be demonstrated by television chefs within an entertaining context to large audiences of consumers. Many variables can affect the success of food safety education strategies and for interventions to be effective, delivery of messages needs to be through communication channels preferred by members of the audience (Maibach and Parrot, 1995). Cumulatively, results from this study indicate that consumer perceptions of different food safety information sources, organisations and spokespersons differ. Data from this study can be used in the development of future consumer-oriented food safety education strategies and thus have implications for health educators, Environmental Health departments, food manufacturers and the Government. Findings reaffirm the need for the development of consumer-oriented food safety education strategies tailored according to the perceptions of the target audience. References Ackerley, L. (1994), “Consumer awareness of food hygiene and food poisoning”, Environmental Health,, March, pp. 70-4. Allen, R.E. (1990), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, 8th ed., Clarendon Press, Oxford. Andreason, A. (1995), Marketing Social Change, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA. Bennett, P. and Murphy, S. (1999), Psychology and Health Promotion, Open University Press, Buckingham. Bland, M. (2002), “Multiple significance tests and the Bonferroni correction”, available at: www. ghms.ac.uk/depts/phs/staff/jmb/bonf.htm (accessed September 2002). Bowling, A. (2000), Research Methods in Health, Open University Press, Buckingham. Breakwell, G.M., Hammond, S. and Fife-Schaw, C. (Eds) (1995), Research Methods in Psychology, Sage Publications, London. Bruhn, C. (1997), “Consumer concerns: motivating to action”, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 511-5. Bruhn, C.M. and Schultz, H.G. (1999), “Consumer food safety knowledge and practices”, Journal of Food Safety, Vol. 19, pp. 73-87. Burgess, F., Little, C.L., Allen, G., Williamson, K. and Mitchell, R.T. (2005), “Prevalence of Campylobacter, Salmonella and Escherichia coli on the external packaging of raw meat”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 68 No. 3, pp. 469-75. Campbell, M.E., Gardner, C.E., Dwyer, J.J., Isaacs, S.M., Kruegar, P.D. and Ying, J.Y. (1998), “Effectiveness of public health interventions in food safety: a systematic review”, Canadian Journal of Public Health,, May-June, pp. 197-201. Curtis, V., Cousens, S., Mertens, T., Traore, T., Kanki, B. and Diallo, I. (1993), “Structured observations of hygiene behaviours in Burkina Faso: validity, variability and utility”, Bulletin of the World Health Organisation, Vol. 71, pp. 23-32. Finn, A. and Louviere, J.J. (1992), “Determining the appropriate response to evidence of public concern: the case of food safety”, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 12-25.

Consumer perceptions of food safety 481

BFJ 107,7

482

Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO)/World Health Organisation (WHO) (1998), “FAO/WHO Expert consultation on the application of risk communication to food standards and food safety matters. 2-6 February. Rome, Italy”, available at: www. fao.org/ (accessed September 2002). Food Safety Education Staff (FSES), Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) (2001), Final Research Report – A Project to Apply the Theories of Social Marketing to the Challenges of Food Thermometer Education in the United States, Baldwin Group, Washington, DC. Food Standards Agency (FSA) (2000), “Your food: farm to fork”, available at: www. foodsatandards.gov.uk/farm_fork.htm (accessed September 2000). Food Standards Agency (FSA) (2002), “Food hygiene campaign”, Food Standards Agency News, Vol. 22, October, p. 4. Foster, G.M. and Kaferstein, F.K. (1985), “Food safety and the behavioural sciences”, Social Science and Medicine, Vol. 21, pp. 1273-7. Fraser, J. and Smith, F. (1997), “Pretesting health promotion leaflets – a case study”, International Journal of Health Education, Vol. 35 No. 3, pp. 97-101. Freimuth, V., Linnan, H.W. and Potter, P. (2000), “Communicating the threat of emerging infections to the public”, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol. 6 No. 4, pp. 337-47. Frewer, L.J., Howard, C. and Shepherd, R. (1995), “Trust in information and food choice behaviour – determinants of underlying attitudes”, Appetite, Vol. 24, p. 274. Frewer, L.J., Howard, C., Hedderley, D. and Shepherd, R. (1996), “What determines trust in information about food-related risks? Underlying psychological constructs”, Risk Analysis, Vol. 16 No. 4, pp. 473-86. Griffin, M., Babin, B.J. and Attaway, J.S. (1991), “An empirical investigation of the impact of negative public publicity on consumer attitudes and intentions”, Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 18, pp. 334-41. Griffith, C.J., Mathias, K.A. and Price, P.E. (1994), “The mass media and food hygiene education”, British Food Journal, Vol. 96 No. 9, pp. 16-21. Groth, E. III (1991), “Communicating with consumers about food safety and risk issues”, Food Technology, May, pp. 248-52. Harrison, W.A., Griffith, C.J., Tennant, D. and Peters, A.C. (2001), “Incidence of Campylobacter and Salmonella isolated from retail chicken and associated packaging in South Wales”, Letters in Applied Microbiology, Vol. 33, pp. 450-4. Khare, R.S. (1988), “Food safety at home: some socio-cultural criteria for research and application”, Social Science, Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 607-22. Kretzer, E.K. and Larson, E.L. (1998), “Behavioural interventions to improve infection control practices”, American Journal of Infection Control, Vol. 26 No. 3, pp. 245-53. Li-Cohen, A.E., Klenk, M., Nicholson, Y., Harwood, J. and Bruhn, C. (2002), “Refining consumer safe handling educational materials through focus groups”, Dairy, Food and Environmental Sanitation, Vol. 22 No. 7, pp. 530-1. McGuire, W.J. (1984), “Public communication as a strategy for inducing health-promoting behavioural change”, Preventative Medicine, Vol. 13, pp. 299-319. Maibach, E. and Parrot, R.L. (1995), Designing Health Messages: Approaches from Communication Theory and Public Health Practice, Sage Publications, London. Mathias, K. (1999), “The use of consumer knowledge, beliefs and attitudes in the development of a local authority strategy for domestic food safety education”, MPhil thesis, Open University, Cardiff.

Mathiasen, L., Chapman, B., Lacroix, B. and Powell, D. (2003), “Spot the mistake: what television cooking shows teach viewers”, paper presented at the International Association of Food Protection Annual Conference, New Orleans, LA. Naikoba, S. and Haywood, A. (2001), “The effectiveness of interventions aimed at increasing hand-washing in healthcare workers – a systematic review”, Journal of Hospital Infection, Vol. 47, pp. 173-80. Nichols, S., Waters, W., Woolaway, M. and Hamilton-Smith, M. (1988), “Evaluation of the effectiveness of a nutritional health education leaflet in changing public knowledge and attitudes about eating and health”, Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, Vol. 1, pp. 233-8. Norman, G.R. and Streiner, D.L. (2000), Biostatistics – The Bare Essentials, 2nd ed., B.C. Decker, London. Office for National Statistics (ONS) (1997), “1991 census”, available at: www.ons.com Partnership for Food Safety Education (2002), “Fight Bac for education”, available at: www. fightbac.org/main.cfm (accessed September 2002). Paul, C.L. and Redman, S. (1997), “A review of the effectiveness of print material in changing health-related knowledge, attitudes and behaviour”, Health Promotion Journal of Australia, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 91-9. Pinfold, J.V. (1999), “Analysis of different communication channels for promoting hygiene behaviour”, Health Education Research, Vol. 14 No. 5, pp. 629-39. Redmond, E.C. (2002), “Food safety behaviour in the home: development, application and evaluation of a social marketing food safety education initiative”, PhD thesis, University of Wales, Cardiff. Redmond, E.C. and Griffith, C.J. (2003), “Consumer food handling in the home: a review of consumer food safety studies”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 130-61. Redmond, E.C., Griffith, C.J. and Peters, A.C. (2000), “Use of social marketing in the prevention of specific cross contamination actions in the domestic environment”, Proceedings of the 2nd NSF International Conference on Food Safety: Preventing Foodborne Illness through Science and Education, Savannah, GA,. Redmond, E.C., Griffith, C.J., Slader, J. and Humphrey, T.J. (2001), The Evaluation and Application of Information on Consumer Hazard and Risk to Food Safety Education, Food Standards Agency, London. Redmond, E.C., Griffith, C.J., Slader, J. and Humphrey, T.J. (2004), “Microbiological and observational analysis of cross contamination risks during domestic food preparation”, British Food Journal, Vol. 106 No. 8, pp. 581-97. Rennie, D.M. (1995), “Health education models and food hygiene education”, Journal of the Royal Society of Health, April, pp. 75-9. Shepherd, R., Frewer, L.J. and Howard, C. (1996), “Trust and risk communication on food issues”, paper presented at Risk in a Modern Society: Lessons for Europe, University of Surrey, Guildford, 3-5 June. Tones, B.K. and Tilford, S. (1996), Health Education; Effectiveness and Efficiency, Chapman and Hall, London. World Health Organisation (WHO) (1988), Health Education in Food Safety, WHO/EHE/FOS/88.7, WHO, Geneva. World Health Organisation (WHO) (2000), Foodborne Disease: A Focus for Health Education, WHO, Geneva. Yang, S., Angulo, F.J. and Altekruse, S.F. (2000), “Evaluation of safe food-handling instructions on raw meat and poultry products”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 63 No. 10, pp. 1321-5.

Consumer perceptions of food safety 483

The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0007-070X.htm

BFJ 107,7

Factors influencing the efficacy of consumer food safety communication

484

Elizabeth C. Redmond and Christopher J. Griffith Food Research and Consultancy Unit, University of Wales Institute Cardiff, Cardiff, UK Abstract Purpose – The home is the location for a substantial number of cases of food poisoning and improving consumer food safety practices is important. This paper proposes investigating how consumers perceive their own abilities and level of food safety risk, as well as attitudes to different forms of interventions which is a largely unstudied area. Design/methodology/approach – Postal questionnaires were sent to a linked demographic quota of adults in South Wales. Responses were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings – Overall the majority of consumers were positively disposed to food safety education, although variation occurred within social economic groups. The majority of respondents expressed confidence in their own abilities, although were prepared to listen to food safety advice. Respondents strongly believed it was important for television chefs to implement necessary food safety practices and indicated optimistic and social desirability bias. Information on risk could be beneficial, although concerns were expressed if this was too graphic. A number of correlations between attitudes were identified which could be of importance in designing food safety interventions. Originality/value – Findings from this study, which have been supported by qualitative findings from focus groups should be considered in the design of intervention strategies. Keywords Consumers, Food safety, Consumer behaviour, Education, Risk management, Wales Paper type Research paper

British Food Journal Vol. 107 No. 7, 2005 pp. 484-499 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0007-070X DOI 10.1108/00070700510606891

Introduction Illness resulting from foodborne disease has become one of the most widespread public health problems in the contemporary world (Jermini, 1999; Motarjemi and Kaferstein, 1997). It is estimated that 3.5 million UK consumers are annually affected by episodes of foodborne disease (Mead et al. 1999) with many cases sporadic (FSA, 2000a) and linked to the domestic kitchen (Beumer and Kusumaningrum, 2003; Redmond and Griffith, 2003). Effective consumer food safety communication strategies are required to reduce the prevalence of risk related food-handling behaviours, increase consumer awareness of risks, and motivate consumers to change unsafe behaviours (Yang et al. 1998). When setting its targets, the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) considered that a significant reduction in the number of cases of foodborne disease was likely to result from focused attention on food preparation practices and raising the standards of food hygiene in the home (FSA, 2000b, 2001). A variety of differing conditions may affect consumer receptivity to health communication messages. Such conditions include demographic and socioeconomic variables, personal receptivity to new information, previous knowledge, educational background, cultural influences, perceptions of risk, control and responsibility and attitudes towards the health issue in question. Traditional food safety communication

approaches have mainly been “expert driven” and consisted of the provision of knowledge-based educational materials. Research has indicated that knowledge gain must precede behavioural change (Medeiros et al., 2004) and knowledge of the consequences of unsafe food-handling practices can enhance consumer motivation to change behaviour (Bruhn, 1997). However, for food safety communication to have the desired behavioural effect, an individual must be exposed to it, pay attention to it, become sufficiently engrossed in it to persist, comprehend what it says, agree with it and ultimately act as the message suggests (McGuire, 1984). Thus, to date, public communication campaigns to encourage adoption of safe food-handling practices have had minimal success (Kretzer and Larson, 1998). To maximise the effectiveness of consumer food safety communication initiatives a consumer-oriented approach using social marketing has been advocated (FSIS and USDA, 2001; Redmond et al., 2000; Redmond, 2002). Social marketing strategies are heavily influenced by what is learned from consumers and formative research in the development process facilitates an in-depth analysis and understanding of consumers’ psychological and social factors that influence desired behavioural change (Bryant and Salazar, 1998). Up until the last decade the consumer was the least studied link in the food chain. Increased international incidence of foodborne disease in 1980s and 1990s and recognition of the significant potential for acquired foodborne disease in the domestic kitchen promoted more interest in “the consumer” and the consumers’ role in production of safe food. As a consequence, safe food preparation in the domestic environment became more widely studied. A review of 88 consumer food safety studies (Redmond and Griffith, 2003) showed that there is a wealth of information detailing consumer knowledge of food safety and self-reported practices. However, information detailing consumer attitudes towards food-handling behaviours, observed behaviours and perceptions of food safety education and food poisoning was limited. It has been reported that there is little public understanding of the exact mechanisms of food poisoning (MAFF, 1988) and research has suggested that consumers fail to recognise key clinical features of foodborne illness (Leman, 2001). Personal experience of ill health may challenge a person’s sense of invulnerability when it comes to health risks (Denscombe, 2001) and therefore experience of food poisoning may have an effect on actual food preparation behaviours. For example, 69 per cent of UK consumers who reported to experience food poisoning have also reported to take extra precautions to prevent suffering a similar bout of food poisoning occurring again (MAFF, 1988). Another UK survey has determined that 19 per cent of consumers had given up specific foods as a result of experiencing food poisoning (Lader, 1999). It is possible that inclusion of information detailing “experience” and consequences of food poisoning may be effective as part of food safety education initiatives. This paper aims to examine factors that influence the efficacy of consumer food safety communication by evaluating consumer receptivity to food safety advice, perceptions of current food safety abilities and attitudes towards information that may be used in future food safety communication strategies.

Efficacy of consumer food safety 485

BFJ 107,7

486

Methodology As part of a larger food safety education initiative using the social marketing approach, a postal questionnaire was designed to evaluate consumer attitudes that influence the efficacy of consumer food safety communication. The questionnaire comprised of 21 attitudinal statements designed to assess receptivity to food safety information, attitudes towards the likelihood of acting food safety advice, perceptions of current behaviours and attitudes towards different locations where food safety information may be placed in future initiatives. Responses were recorded on a five-point Likert-type rating scale (strongly agree to strongly disagree). During the developmental stages of this questionnaire, pilot testing was carried out using a subset of the respondent sample and recommended piloting procedures (Breakwell et al. 1995). To assess for internal consistency, Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient was calculated for the 21-item attitude scale. A coefficient of 0.70 was obtained, indicating the response scale had an acceptable internal consistency. A total of 100 consumers recruited by a local market research agency represented a linked demographic quota of adults aged . 16years from Cardiff, South Wales, UK, from all socio-economic groups (SEGs) based on UK Census data (ONS, 1997). The questionnaire was sent to respondents with a covering letter and prepaid addressed envelope. Respondents were offered a supermarket incentive to return a completed questionnaire within one month of administration. Follow-up telephone calls were made and reminder letters were sent to respondents at intervals after the initial survey had been distributed. A response rate of 61 per cent was attained, and responses were obtained from consumers from all SEGs and age groups. All responses were anonymous and findings were entered onto a specially constructed consumer food safety database (Microsoft Access ’97). Data analysis was carried out using SPSS (Version 9.0) and Microsoft Excel ’97. Attitudinal responses were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistical techniques. For the primary analysis, all attitudinal responses were coded from one to five, according to positive and negative responses to provide an indication of attitudinal direction. Spearmans rank correlation coefficient (rho) (two-tailed) was used to identify correlations between overall and individual attitude scores and respondent SEGs and age groups. The Mann Whitney U test was used to assess differences in male and female attitude scores. For the secondary analysis, descriptive statistics were used to summarise responses to individual attitude statements. An examination of potential associations between individual attitude responses and respondent demographics occurred using Spearmans rho and Mann Whitney U test. Alpha levels determined for all multiple comparisons in the analyses to identify statistical significance were corrected using Bonferroni correction (Norman and Streiner, 2000; Bland, 2002). Results Demographics of respondents to this questionnaire are found in Table I. In addition, recruitment data showed that 82 per cent of the respondent sample reported themselves to prepare a meal once or twice a day or more, and the remaining respondents prepared a meal at least once or twice a week. A summary of cumulative scored responses to attitude statements is presented in Table II. In total, 58 (95 per cent) of respondents answered all attitude statements fully

Age groups

% respondents

16-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65 þ

5 11 12 15 8 10

Socio-economic groupa

8 18 20 25 13 16

AB C1 C2 DE

% respondents 15 25 13 8

25 41 21 13

Efficacy of consumer food safety 487

Notes: a Socio-economic groups include the following: AB ¼ professionals, very senior managers, top level civil servants, middle management executives, top management of small businesses/other establishments; C1 ¼ junior management, non manual positions; C2 ¼ all skilled manual workers; DE ¼ all semi skilled and unskilled manual workers, unemployed and entirely dependent on the state

Total attitude scores

n

%

30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 65-69 70-74

0 1 3 11 13 14 9 7 0

0 2 5 19 22 24 16 12 0

and these responses were used for analysis of total and mean attitude scores. Total obtainable scores ranged from 21 to 105 and the minimum total score obtained was 37 and the maximum score obtained was 68. It can be seen in Table II that 81 per cent of total attitude scores ranged from 45 to 64. Furthermore, data also indicated that 95 per cent of respondents’ scores ranged from 2 to 3 (1 ¼ positive, 5 ¼ negative). Overall, the majority of mean consumer responses to food safety education were more positive than negative. An assessment of the association between age groups, SEG groups and median attitude values was made using Spearmans rho correlation coefficient (two-tailed) (n ¼ 61). Results showed no significant correlation (r ¼ 20:132, p . 0:05) between age groups and median attitude values. However, a positive significant correlation (r ¼ 0:346, p , 0:01) was identified between SEG groups and median attitude values. This suggests that respondents from social classes AB were significantly associated with a more positive attitude towards aspects of food safety communication and respondents from social classes DE were correlated with a more negative attitude. Use of a Mann Whitney test statistic identified no significant differences between male and female responses. Mean scores and median values per attitude statement are presented in Table III. Mean scores ranged from 1.64 to 3.80 (1 ¼ positive response, 5 ¼ negative response). The most positive attitude (1.64) was towards the importance of television chefs to implement all necessary food safety practices when preparing food on television

Table I. Respondents’ profile (n ¼ 61)

Table II. Total attitude scores for respondents who answered all attitude statements (n ¼ 58)

Table III. Mean and median attitude scores per attitude statement

Note: SD ¼ Standard deviation

It is important for television chefs to carry out all necessary food safety practices when preparing food on television shows I am willing to listen or read any information on food safety No information given to me is likely to change my food safety behaviour I have never acted on any food safety advice in the past I am likely to read food safety advice stated on food packaging I always carry out all the necessary food safety precautions that I know during food preparation I am unlikely to act on information given to me in the future concerning food safety I am likely to pay no attention to food safety advice on food packaging Information about the risks of inadequate food safety practices will not have any effect upon my current food preparation practices Information regarding the consequences of inadequate food safety practices is likely to alter my food preparation behaviour There is a need for food safety to be taught in schools Hearing stories about cases of food poisoning will lead to improvements in my food safety behaviour I do not need to be given any food safety advice I do not like hearing the symptoms and medical details about food poisoning I think I know all of the food safety precautions necessary for safe food preparation I do not feel that enough food safety advice is available to me Other people need for advice concerning food safety more than I do My current food safety behaviours do not need improvement Other people take more notice of food safety advice than I do Personal experience of food poisoning has a greater chance of improving food safety behaviour than education I am confident that my current food preparation behaviours do not give rise to a risk of food poisoning 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 4

61 61 61 61 61 61 60 59 61 61 61 61 61 61 60 61

Median value per statement

61 61 61 61 61

n

3.80

3.33

2.45 2.64 2.77 2.90 2.97 3.10 3.20 3.41

2.28 2.39

2.18

2.10 2.11 2.16

1.64 1.82 1.92 2.00 2.07

Mean attitude score per statement

488

Attitude statement

0.75

1.04

0.85 0.96 0.92 1.01 0.86 0.70 0.81 0.94

0.73 1.46

0.90

0.81 0.78 0.93

0.82 0.59 0.80 0.77 0.75

SD

BFJ 107,7

shows. Variance of responses to statements ranged from 0.56 to 1.46. The least variance to responses was based on the attitude towards the possible impact that information about the risks of inadequate food safety practices may have on food safety behaviours. The attitude statement regarding the need for food safety to be taught in schools resulted in the largest variance of responses. Attitudinal responses denoting personal food safety ability are found in Table IV. Results showed that the majority (74 per cent) of respondents were confident that their current food preparation behaviours do not give rise to the risk of food poisoning, yet nearly a fifth of respondents indicated they do not always carry out all of the necessary food safety precautions they know during food preparation. The sample was evenly split as to whether all of the food safety precautions necessary for safe food preparation were known and more than half respondents recognised a need for improvement of their current food safety behaviours. Results indicating consumer receptivity to food safety advice are presented in Table V (statements 5-1 to 5-10). A large proportion of respondents indicated they did need to be given food safety advice and responses were largely neutral as to whether enough information is available to them. The majority (90 per cent) of respondents indicated that they are willing to listen or read any advice about food safety and a similar proportion of respondents (87 per cent) indicated that information given to them is likely to change their food safety behaviours. Of the respondents, 69 per cent indicated that information about the consequences of inadequate food safety behaviours is likely to change their food preparation behaviour and only 10 per cent of respondents indicated that information about the risks of inadequate food safety practices would not have any effect on their current food safety practices. Attitude responses towards other factors that may influence the efficacy of food safety communication strategies are found in Table V (statements 5-11 to 5-15). The

Attitude statement 4-1 I am confident that my current food preparation behaviours do not give rise to a risk of food poisoning 4-2 I think I know all of the food safety precautions necessary for safe food preparation 4-3 My current food safety behaviours do not need improvement 4-4 I always carry out all the necessary food safety precautions that I know during food preparation

Agree n (%)

Neither agree or disagree n (%)

Disagree n (%)

Strongly disagree n (%)

13

37

61

12

20

4

6

0

0

2

3

21

35

12

20

24

39

2

3

4

6

15

25

31

51

11

18

0

0

n

Strongly agree n (%)

61

8

61 61

61

11

18

38

62

8

13

3

5

1

2

Efficacy of consumer food safety 489

Table IV. Consumer perceptions of personal food safety ability

BFJ 107,7 Attitude statement

490

5-1 5-2 5-3 5-4

5-5 5-6 5-7

5-8

5-9

5-10 5-11 5-12 Table V. Consumer attitudes towards factors that may influence the efficacy of food safety communication

5-13

I do not need to be given any food safety advice I do not feel that enough food safety advice is available to me I am willing to listen or read any information on food safety I am unlikely to act on information given to me in the future concerning food safety No information given to me is likely to change my food safety behaviour I have never acted on any food safety advice in the past Information about the risks of inadequate food safety practices will not have any effect on my current food preparation practices Information regarding the consequences of inadequate food safety practices is likely to alter my food preparation behaviour I am likely to pay no attention to food safety advice on food packaging I am likely to read food safety advice stated on food packaging Other people need advice concerning food safety more than I do Other people take more notice of food safety advice than I do There is a need for food safety to be taught in schools

n

Strongly agree n (%)

Agree n (%)

Neither agree or disagree n (%)

Disagree n (%)

Strongly disagree n (%)

59

1

2

14

24

10

17

31

52

3

5

61

1

2

19

31

23

37

17

28

1

2

61

17

28

38

62

6

10

0

0

0

0

61

0

0

5

8

7

12

39

64

10

16

61

1

2

2

3

5

5

36

59

17

28

61

0

0

5

8

3

5

40

66

13

21

61

1

2

5

8

10

16

33

54

12

20

61

6

10

36

59

15

25

4

6

0

0

61

1

2

7

11

5

8

36

59

12

20

61

11

18

39

64

7

12

4

6

0

0

61

1

2

14

23

37

60

8

13

1

2

61

2

3

5

8

28

46

18

30

8

13

61

21

34

21

34

3

5

6

10

10

17

(continued)

Attitude statement 5-14

5-15

5-16

5-17

5-18

It is important for television chefs to carry out all necessary food safety practices when preparing food on television shows I am more likely to take notice of messages about specific food safety behaviours than generalised messages Hearing stories about cases of food poisoning will lead to improvements in my food safety behaviour I do not like hearing the symptoms and medical details about food poisoning Personal experience of food poisoning has a greater chance of improving food safety behaviour than education

n

Strongly agree n (%)

Agree n (%)

Neither agree or disagree n (%)

Disagree n (%)

Strongly disagree n (%)

Efficacy of consumer food safety 491

61

32

53

21

34

7

11

0

0

1

2

61

5

8

41

68

13

21

2

3

0

0

60

8

14

23

38

23

38

6

10

0

0

61

1

2

13

21

22

36

21

34

4

7

60

6

10

25

42

14

23

13

22

2

3

majority of responses regarding other peoples’ need for food safety advice and attention to food safety advice (when compared to self) were largely neutral. However, tendencies were towards the perception that “others” are in need of food safety advice, and “others” do not take as much of notice of food safety advice than the respondents themselves. Between 79-82 per cent of respondents were likely to pay attention to food safety advice stated on food packaging. Three-quarters of respondents thought they were more likely to take notice of messages about specific food safety behaviours compared to generalised messages. Consumer attitudes towards food poisoning illness descriptions and experience are presented in Table V (statements 5-16 to 5-18). More than half of the respondent sample indicated that personal experience and hearing stories about cases of food poisoning was likely to improve their food safety behaviours. However, 23 per cent of the sample stated they did not like to hear the symptoms and medical details about cases of food poisoning. Correlations between attitude responses can be found in Table VI. A total of 15 Spearmans rho correlations were determined (p , 0:05). The strongest correlation (r ¼ 0:701, p , 0:05) was positive and determined between two statements denoting the impact of food safety information upon food safety behaviours. Other positive correlations were between responses to statements indicating the likelihood of acting

Table V.

BFJ 107,7

492

Attitude statement

Attitude statement

n

No information given to me is likely to change my food safety behaviour

Information about the risks of inadequate food safety practices will not have any effect on my current food preparation practices I have never acted on any food safety advice in the past

61

0.701

61

0.612

No information given to me is likely to change my food safety behaviour

61

0.609

I have never acted upon any food safety advice in the past

61

0.578

I think I know all of the food safety precautions necessary for safe food preparation I always carry out all the necessary food safety precautions that I know during food preparation

61

0.546

61

0.541

Information about the risks of inadequate food safety practices will not have any effect upon my current food preparation practices. I have never acted on any food safety advice in the past

61

0.535

61

0.528

I am confident that my current food preparation behaviours do not give rise to a risk of food poisoning I think I know all of the food safety precautions necessary for safe food preparation

61

0.483

61

0.407

Information regarding the consequences of inadequate food safety practices is likely to alter my food preparation behaviour I have never acted on any food safety advice in the past

61

0.403

61

2 0.400

I am willing to listen or read any information on food safety I am willing to listen or read any information on food safety

61

2 0.402

61

2 0.407

Information about the risks of inadequate food safety practices will not have any effect on my current food preparation practices

61

2 0.532

No information given to me is likely to change my food safety behaviour I am unlikely to act on information given to me in the future concerning food safety Information about the risks of inadequate food safety practices will not have any effect upon my current food preparation practices My current food safety behaviours do not need improvement I am confident that my current food preparation behaviours do not give rise to a risk of food poisoning I am unlikely to act on information given to me in the future concerning food safety I am unlikely to act on information given to me in the future concerning food safety My current food safety behaviours do not need improvement I am confident that my current food preparation behaviours do not give rise to a risk of food poisoning I am willing to listen or read any information on food safety

Table VI. Spearmans rho correlations between attitude responses (p , 0:05)

Information regarding the consequences of inadequate food safety practices is likely to alter my food preparation behaviour Other people take more notice of food safety advice than I do I am unlikely to act on information given to me in the future concerning food safety Information regarding the consequences of inadequate food safety practices is likely to alter my food preparation behaviour

r

on food safety information in the past and the likelihood of acting on information in the future. In addition, perceived adequacy of current food preparation behaviours was significantly associated (r ¼ 0:546, p , 0:05) with perceived knowledge for all of the food safety precautions required for safe food preparation. Thus, the perception that current food preparation behaviours do not need improvement was associated with reported knowledge of all of the necessary food safety precautions required for safe food preparation. Conversely, an attitude indicating current food safety behaviours do need improvement was associated with a lack of appropriate knowledge. Confidence that food safety behaviours do not present a risk of food poisoning was found to be significantly associated (r ¼ 0:541, p , 0:05) with the belief that all of the necessary food preparation behaviours are implemented during food preparation. Conversely, lack of confidence that food safety behaviours do not present a risk of food poisoning was associated with the belief that all food safety behaviours known were not implemented at all times. To aid development of informed placement strategies for food safety education interventions, statistical differences between attitudinal responses and demographics of the respondent sample were investigated and findings are presented in Table VII. No correlations were determined between age groups and attitude responses. However, 24 per cent (5/21) of attitude statements were correlated with SEG. All of such correlations identified were negative. The strongest of these correlations (r ¼ 20:422, p , 0:05) was between SEG and response to the statement “information about the risks of inadequate food safety practices will not have any effect upon my current food preparation practices”. Respondents from SEG “AB” indicated that information about the risks of food safety practices would have an effect on current food preparation behaviours, and respondents from SEG “DE” indicated the contrary. A correlation (r ¼ 20:278, p , 0:05) was identified between SEG and the statement “I do not like hearing the symptoms and medical details about food poisoning”, suggesting that respondents from SEG “AB” do not mind to hear about the symptoms and medical details about food poisoning, whereas, respondents from SEG “DE” were associated with not liking to hear such details. Further associations were made between the likelihood of acting on food safety information and SEG. Negative associations suggested that respondents from SEG “AB” were likely to act on food safety information in the future and respondents from SEG “DE” were not. In addition to this, a negative association (r ¼ 20:345, p , 0:01) between SEG and the attitude statement “I have never acted upon food safety information in the past”. Thus, consumers from SEG “AB” indicated they have acted on food safety information in the past, and consumers from SEG “DE” had not. Significant differences between male and female responses occurred for 10 per cent (2/21) of the attitude statements. Z scores ranged from 2 1.98 to 2 2.41 indicating that overall, differences between the two samples were not that considerable. Actual proportions of male and female responses to statements where differences were detected can be seen in Table VIII. A large proportion of males (70 per cent) than females (37 per cent) disagreed with the statement “I think I know all of the food safety precautions necessary for safe food preparation”, thus indicating that more males perceive themselves not to know all food safety practices required for safe food preparation than females. The second statement where significant differences (Z ¼ 22:410, p , 0:05) were identified between male and female

Efficacy of consumer food safety 493

BFJ 107,7

494

Table VII. Statistical differences between male/female respondents, respondent age groups, SEGs and attitudes that may influence efficacy of food safety education initiatives

Attitude statement I am confident that my current food preparation behaviours do not give rise to a risk of food poisoning I think I know all of the food safety precautions necessary for safe food preparation My current food safety behaviours do not need improvement I do not need to be given any food safety advice I do not feel that enough food safety advice is available to me I am willing to listen or read any information on food safety I am unlikely to act on information given to me in the future concerning food safety No information given to me is likely to change my food safety behaviour I have never acted on any food safety advice in the past I always carry out all the necessary food safety precautions that I know during food preparation Information about the risks of inadequate food safety practices will not have any effect on my current food preparation practices Information regarding the consequences of inadequate food safety practices is likely to alter my food preparation behaviour Other people need for advice concerning food safety more than I do Other people take more notice of food safety advice than I do. I am likely to pay no attention to food safety advice on food packaging I am likely to read food safety advice stated on food packaging Hearing stories about cases of food poisoning will lead to improvements in my food safety behaviour I do not like hearing the symptoms and medical details about food poisoning Personal experience of food poisoning has a greater chance of improving food safety behaviour than education There is a need for food safety to be taught in schools It is important for television chefs to carry out all necessary food safety practices when preparing food on television shows

M/Fa

Age groupb

SEGb

–

–

–

Z ¼ 21:981*

–

–

–

–

–

– Z ¼ 22:410*

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

r ¼ 20:329**

–

–

r ¼ 20:359**

–

–

r ¼ 20:345**

–

–

–

–

–

r ¼ 20:422**

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

r ¼ 20:278*

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

Notes: a Comparisons of male and female (M/F) responses using the Mann Whitney U test statistic; Correlations identified between age/SEG and attitude responses using Spearmans rho correlation coefficient; * p , 0:05; ** p , 0:01; “– ” no association/relationship

b

responses was regarding perception of availability of food safety advice. More males (70 per cent) considered that insufficient food safety advice is available than females (26 per cent). Discussion Of importance to the success of any health education campaign is the perceived need for the information (Griffith et al., 1994). A large proportion of consumers from this study perceived a need for improvement in their current food safety behaviours and similar numbers of respondents also indicated that they lacked knowledge of all of the precautions necessary for safe food production. Despite this, three-quarters of respondents expressed an attitude to indicate confidence that their current food preparation behaviours do not give rise to the risk of food poisoning. These findings are similar to responses of commercial food handlers who also perceived there to be a low risk of someone contracting food poisoning from their business even though many admitted to sometimes or often not carrying out food safety behaviours (Griffith et al., 2001). Findings from this study showed that correlated attitudinal responses might have implications that could reduce the efficacy of interventions. For example, an attitude indicating that current food safety behaviours do not need improvement was found to be associated with reported knowledge of all food safety precautions necessary for safe food preparation. In addition, confidence that food preparation behaviours do not present a risk of food poisoning was associated with the belief that all necessary food safety behaviours are implemented during food preparation. Implications of such attitudes may cause consumers to disassociate themselves from food safety education efforts and may be considered within the realms of optimistic bias (Redmond and Griffith, 2004). Weinstein (1989) has further discussed impediments to behavioural change including the failure to admit that behaviours such as smoking or driving whilst intoxicated do present risks. This, as with findings from this study concur with previous research findings that have shown perceived risk of hazards are seen to apply to other people rather than oneself (Frewer et al., 1995). If people consider themselves to be relatively invulnerable, educational messages may be perceived as meant only for others (Hoorens, 1994). Within this study, Male % total no. of respondents (n ¼ 10)

Female % total no. of respondents (n ¼ 51)

I think I know all of the food Strongly agree/agree safety precautions necessary Neither Strongly disagreea/disagree for safe food preparation

10 20 70

43 20 37

I do not feel that enough food Strongly agreea/agree safety advice is available Neither to me Strongly disagree/disagree

70 20 10

26 41 33

Attitude statement

Note: a = positive response

Level of agreement/disagreement

Efficacy of consumer food safety 495

Table VIII. Attitudes towards food safety education influences where statistically significant differences between male and female respondents have been identified using the Mann Whitney U test statistic

BFJ 107,7

496

judgements of optimistic bias have been associated with the perceived need for food safety education. Although the majority of consumers responded with a neutral attitude, more consumers agreed that others needed advice concerning food safety more so than themselves. In addition to this a larger proportion of consumers thought they took more notice of food safety advice than others. One of the greatest challenges associated with promotion of health-related information is that of overcoming such audience biases (Menon et al., 2002). Attitudes regarding implementation of food safety behaviours indicated that 80 per cent consumers strongly agreed or agreed that they “always” carried out all of the food safety precautions that they know during food preparation. However, observational studies of consumer food safety behaviours (Anderson et al., 2004; Jay et al., 1999; Redmond et al., 2004) have indicated that frequent food-handling malpractices still take place during food preparation in the domestic environment. This suggests attitudinal responses to statements may be subject to social desirability bias (Bowling, 2000). In a review of consumers’ self-reported food safety practices (Redmond and Griffith, 2003) the notion of social desirability bias was found to be prevalent in many consumer food safety surveys. Nevertheless, such a finding illustrates the need for food safety communication strategies to improve food-handling behaviours during domestic food preparation. In 1988, 42 per cent of consumers indicated that sufficient food safety information was not available (MAFF, 1988). Results from this study indicate that slightly fewer (33 per cent) consumers did not think enough food safety advice was available to them (more males than females), however a similar proportion (31 per cent) indicated that they thought that enough food safety information is available to them. A comparison of data from the MAFF study (MAFF, 1988) and this study could suggest over the past 16 years there may have been a reduction in the proportion of consumers who perceive there to be insufficient food safety information available. Findings from this study determined that respondents who reported never acting on information in the past are unlikely to act on information detailing risks and consequences of food poisoning in the future. Conversely those who have acted on information in the past are more receptive to information about risks and consequences of food poisoning. Therefore, consumers who have not acted on previous food safety information will require a modified and refined educational approach as traditional methods appear to have been ineffective at reaching some consumers (Fraser and Smith, 1997). The majority (82 per cent) of respondents in this survey have indicated that they are likely to read food safety advice stated on food packaging, and in addition, and previous research has shown it is a preferred source of food safety information (Redmond and Griffith, 2005), cumulatively suggesting the benefits of food packaging as a source of food safety advice. Despite this, an investigation to determine the effectiveness of a food safety label on raw meat found that the label did not successfully prevent persons from having risky food-handling behaviours (Yang et al., 2000). Thus, a combination of such findings illustrate that consumer perception of the likelihood to read advice from a specific source and indication of receptivity of the advice from a preferred source may not be sole prerequisites for behavioural change. Statistically significant differences between male and female responses to attitude statements illustrate the need for targeted food safety education strategies. Seventy per

cent of females and only 37 per cent males thought they knew all of the food safety precautions necessary for safe food preparation. Therefore, a targeted educational strategy for males may initially concentrate on increasing self-efficacy and knowledge of food safety behaviours prior to the promotion of interventions designed to advocate actual behavioural change. A further significant difference between male and female responses was regarding perceived availability of advice. More male respondents (70 per cent) than female respondents (26 per cent) considered that insufficient food safety advice is available to them, suggesting that further investigative research is required to identify life-point-paths suitable for placement of food safety education interventions for male consumers. No significant associations were determined between age of consumer and response to attitude statements. However, significant associations between SEG and attitudinal response have been identified. Possibly the most potentially influential association identified suggested that consumers from social classes AB were more likely to act on food safety information in the future, whereas consumers from social classes DE were not. Thus, the same type of food safety education interventions may not be appropriate for different social classes and therefore targeting is required so that different groups of consumers receive tailored messages. Although this is a relatively small-scale study the results presented have been of value, in conjunction with qualitative formative research findings from targeted audiences, to inform the development of consumer orientated food safety communication strategies. References Anderson, J.B., Shuster, T.A., Hansen, K.E., Levy, A.S. and Volk, A. (2004), “A camera’s view of consumer food handling behaviors”, Journal of American Dietetic Association, Vol. 104 No. 2, pp. 186-91. Beumer, R. and Kusumaningrum, H.D. (2003), “Kitchen hygiene in daily life”, International Journal Biodeterioration and Biodegradation, Vol. 51 No. 4, pp. 299-302. Bland, M. (2002), “Multiple significance tests and the Bonferroni correction”, available at: www. ghms.ac.uk/depts/phs/staff/jmb/bonf.htm (accessed 18 September 2002). Bowling, A. (2000), Research Methods in Health, Open University Press, Buckingham. Breakwell, G.M., Hammond, S. and Fife-Schaw, C. (Eds) (1995), Research Methods in Psychology, Sage Publications, London. Bruhn, C. (1997), “Consumer concerns: motivating to action”, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 511-5. Bryant, C. and Salazar, B. (1998), “Social marketing – a tool for excellence”, unpublished manuscript. Denscombe, M. (2001), “Critical incidents and the perception of health risks: the expectancies of young people in relation to their uses of alcohol and tobacco”, Health, Risk and Society, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 293-306. Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) (2001), Final Research Report: A Project to Apply Theories of Social Marketing To the Challenge of Food Thermometer Education In the United States, December 21, report provided by the Baldwin Group, Baldwin Group, Washington, DC. Food Standards Agency (FSA) (2000a), Paper FSA 00/05/02, Agenda Item 4, 12 October, Foodborne disease: developing a strategy to deliver the agencies targets, FSA, London.

Efficacy of consumer food safety 497

BFJ 107,7

498

Food Standards Agency (FSA) (2000b), Food Standards Agency to reduce food poisoning by 20 per cent, press reslease, available at: www.foodstandards.gov.uk/news/pressreleases/ reducefoodpoisoning/ (accessed 15 November 2002). Food Standards Agency (FSA) (2001), “Microbiological foodborne disease strategy”, July, available at: www.food.gov/ (accessed 25 September 2001). Fraser, J. and Smith, F. (1997), “Pretesting health promotion leaflets – a case study”, International Journal of Health Education, Vol. 35 No. 3, pp. 97-101. Frewer, L.J., Howard, C. and Shepherd, R. (1995), “Methodological approaches to assessing risk perceptions associated with food related hazards”, IV European Congress of Psychology, Athens, 2-7 July, Abstract. Griffith, C.J., Mathias, K.A. and Price, P.E. (1994), “The mass media and food hygiene education”, British Food Journal, Vol. 96 No. 9, pp. 16-21. Griffith, C.J., Price, P., Peters, A. and Clayton, D. (2001), An Evaluation of Food Handlers Knowledge, Belief and Attitudes about Food Safety and Its Interpretation Using Social Cognition Models, FSA, London. Hoorens, V. (1994), “Unrealistic optimism in health and safety risks”, in Rutter, D. and Quine, L. (Eds), Changing Health Behaviour, Open University Press, Buckingham. Jay, L.S., Comar, D. and Govenlock, L.D. (1999), “A video study of Australian food handlers and food handling practices”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 62 No. 11, pp. 1285-96. Jermini, M. (1999), “HACCP: internal verses regulatory assessments”, paper presented at the seminar on Food Safety Assessment and Nutrition Research, organized by the International Life Science Institute, Europe, 22-23 November, Ankora, available at: www.who.it/programmes /food_safety.htm (accessed 2 June 2000). Kretzer, E.K. and Larson, E.L. (1998), “Behavioural interventions to improve infection control practices”, American Journal of Infection Control, Vol. 26 No. 3, pp. 245-53. Lader, D. (1999), Food Safety in the Home 1998, Office for National Statistics, London. Leman, P. (2001), “Clinical and microbiological features of suspect sporadic food poisoning cases presenting to an accident and emergency department”, Communicable Diseases and Public Health, Vol. 4, pp. 209-12. McGuire, W.J. (1984), “Public communication as a strategy for inducing health-promoting behavioural change”, Preventative Medicine, Vol. 13, pp. 299-319. Mead, P.S., Slutsker, L., Dietz, V., McCaig, L., Bresee, J.S., Shapiro, C., Griffin, P.M. and Tauxe, R.V. (1999), “Food related illness and death in the United States”, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol. 5 No. 5, pp. 607-25. Medeiros, L.C., Hillers, V.N., Chen, G., Bergmann, V., Kendall, P. and Schroeder, M. (2004), “Design and development of food safety knowledge and attitude scales for consumer food safety education”, Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Vol. 104 No. 11, pp. 1671-7. Menon, G., Block, L.G. and Ramanathan, S. (2002), “We’re at as much risk as we are led to believe: effects of message cues on judgements of health risk”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 28, pp. 533-49. Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food (MAFF) (1988), Food Hygiene: Report on a Consumer Survey, Research Surveys of Great Britain, HMSO, London. Motarjemi, Y. and Kaferstein, F.K. (1997), “Global estimation of foodborne disease”, World Health Statistics Quarterly, Vol. 50 Nos 1/2, pp. 5-11. Norman, G.R. and Streiner, D.L. (2000), Biostatistics – the Bare Essentials, 2nd ed., B.C. Decker, London.

Office for National Statistics (ONS) (1997), “1991 census”, available at: www.ons.com Redmond, E.C. (2002), “Food safety behaviour in the home: development, application and evaluation of a social marketing food safety education initiative”, PhD thesis, University of Wales, Cardiff. Redmond, E.C. and Griffith, C.J. (2003), “Consumer food-handling in the home: a review of food safety studies”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 66 No. 1, pp. 130-61. Redmond, E.C. and Griffith, C.J. (2004), “Consumer perceptions of food safety risk, control and responsibility”, Appetite, Vol. 43, pp. 309-19. Redmond, E.C. and Griffith, C.J. (2005), “Consumer perceptions of food safety education sources: implications for effective strategy development”, British Food Journal, in press. Redmond, E.C., Griffith, C.J. and Peters, A.C. (2000), “Use of social marketing in the prevention of specific cross contamination actions in the domestic environment”, Proceedings of the 2nd NSF International Conference on Food Safety: Preventing Foodborne Illness through Science and Education, Savannah, GA, 11-13 October. Redmond, E.C., Griffith, C.J., Slader, J. and Humphrey, T.J. (2004), “Microbiological and observational analysis of cross contamination risks during domestic food preparation”, British Food Journal, Vol. 106 No. 8, pp. 581-97. Weinstein, N.D. (1989), “Optimistic bias as about personal risks”, Science, Vol. 246, pp. 1232-3. Yang, S., Angulo, F. and Altekruse, S.F. (2000), “Evaluation of safe food-handling instructions on raw meat and poultry products”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 63 No. 10, pp. 1321-5. Yang, S., Leff, M.G., McTague, D., Horvath, K.A., Thompson, J., Murayi, T., Boeselager, G.K., Melruk, T.A., Gildmaster, M.C., Ridings, D.L., Altekruse, S.F. and Angulo, F.J. (1998), “Multi-state surveillance for food handling and preparation and consumption behaviours associated with foodborne diseases 1995 and 1996”, Morbidity Mortality Weekly Report, Vol. 47, pp. 33-54.

Efficacy of consumer food safety 499

The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0007-070X.htm

BFJ 107,7

Understanding consumer perception of food quality: the cases of shrimps and cheese

500

Torben Hansen Department of Marketing, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark Abstract Purpose – The paper proposes to investigate empirically consumers’ quality perception of shrimps and cheese. Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 320 respondents was included in an experimental design in which two food products, shrimps and cheese, two price-levels, two levels of purchase involvement, and two types of physical surroundings, elegant and less elegant, were manipulated. The experiments included both simulated buying situations and simulated usage situations. Findings – The research finds that in the buying situation both experiments perceived price had a positive effect on expected eating quality for high-involved respondents but not for low-involved respondents. In the usage situation the effect of expected naturalness on experienced naturalness was in both experiments stronger for high-involved respondents than for low-involved respondents. In addition, experienced eating quality positively affected respondents’ pleasure-feeling. The positive effect of experienced eating quality on pleasure-feeling was stronger for respondents exposed to elegant physical surroundings than for respondents exposed to less elegant surroundings. Research limitations/implications – This research concentrated on analyzing two food products, fresh-shelled shrimps and solid cheese. This could mean that the results may suffer from a lack of generalizability. A large cross-section of products ought to be studied to improve the generalizability of the results. Also, the manipulation of price and physical surroundings were confined to two different levels. Thus, this research offers no specific guidelines on how to set specific prices or how to establish specific physical surroundings for the purpose of manipulating, e.g. consumers’ perceived quality. Practical implications – The results emphasize that food producers and retailers, among others, should seek an understanding of consumers’ quality perception process in relation to both the buying and the usage situation. Originality/value – This paper empirically investigates consumers’ quality perception in both buying and usage situations. Also, the paper includes purchase involvement and physical surroundings as moderating variables of the quality perception process. Keywords Fish (food), Dairy products, Quality, Perception, Price Paper type Research paper

British Food Journal Vol. 107 No. 7, 2005 pp. 500-525 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0007-070X DOI 10.1108/00070700510606909

Introduction Consumers’ perception of quality has received considerable interest in relation to the investigation of consumer food choice (e.g. Babin and Darden, 1996). Perceived quality has been shown to affect, e.g. perceived value (Chang and Wildt, 1994), satisfaction, and loyalty (Hansen, 2001). It is therefore highly relevant for food producers and retailers, among others, to gain insight into the consumer quality perception process in order to reach the desired position in the food marketplace. Due to the potential complexity of the perceptual process several problems may, however, arise in connection hereto. For example, the way consumers perceive the quality of a food product before a purchase is

often different from the way quality is perceived after consumption (Jover et al., 2004). The perception of quality in the usage situation may therefore be important for the consumer’s future associations between quality stimuli and quality benefits, and consequently, for the a priori beliefs of the consumer in the next purchasing situation (Kopalle and Lehmann, 1995). This suggests that an understanding of the perception process in relation to food product quality should be sought on the basis of both the purchasing and the usage situation. As another example, the quality perception process may be moderated by a number of both personal (e.g. involvement, past experiences and the like) and situational variables (e.g. physical surroundings, buying purpose, and the like), which also must be taken into account when seeking to understand consumers’ perception of food quality. It is probably impossible to define any unambiguous interpretation of quality, which can be applied to all consumers in relation to all food products in all situations. The perception of quality is a result of an interaction between the consumer’s conceptual perception and the consumer’s subjective assessment of a food product’s quality in a given situation. A study of consumer perception of quality must therefore aim at mapping various aspects of food products, situations and people which, taken as a whole, lead to variations in consumer perception of quality. On the basis of such considerations the first purpose of this paper is to develop a framework, which may serve as a frame of reference for the study of consumers’ quality perception process. Using the framework as a point of departure, the second purpose of this paper is to investigate the quality perception process of two consumer food products: shrimps and cheese. Framework and research hypotheses The framework Although consumer perception of food quality may differ across cultural settings the perceptual process is basically an individual phenomenon, which may be affected by personal and situational characteristics, and that are often based on incomplete information (Holm and Kildevang, 1996). In relation to the individual consumer it is therefore difficult to talk about a “real” or “objective” reality. Reality is as each consumer sees it. Therefore, in consumer research it makes little sense to talk about food quality per se (Bredahl, 2003). Instead, from a consumer perspective, the terms “subjective quality” or “perceived quality” are employed. Several models and theories have been proposed for the purpose of understanding consumer perception of food quality including cue utilization theory (Olson, 1972), the multi-attribute approach, hierarchical models (Steenkamp, 1989), and means-end chain theory (Grewal, 1995). Based on an extensive review of such models and theories, we have developed a framework for understanding consumer perception of food quality (Figure 1). The framework proposes possible links between several basic constructs related to consumer quality perception: stimuli, expected quality attributes, experienced quality attributes, pleasure-feeling, and buying intention. In the model, the quality perception process is assumed to be affected by personal factors such as previous experience, perceived competencies, degree of involvement, quality consciousness, preferences, etc. Moreover, the perception process is assumed to be affected by a number of situational variables. These variables are described by means of Belk’s (1975) typology of five potential situational variables. In the following the background considerations for the framework are discussed.

Consumer perception of food quality 501

BFJ 107,7

502

Figure 1. The food quality perception process

Quality stimuli and attributes. It is generally acknowledged that consumer quality expectations are based on quality stimuli. Steenkamp and Meulenberg (1985) and Steenkamp (1989, 1990), among others, suggest that “quality stimuli” should only comprise product properties, which the consumer can perceive with his or her senses before actual consumption takes place. Other product elements are then called attributes. Quality stimuli can be divided into intrinsic and extrinsic stimuli (Olson, 1972; Richardson et al., 1994). Product-intrinsic stimuli are stimuli, which cannot be changed without changing the physical composition of the product, while product-external stimuli are stimuli that can be changed without changing the physical composition of the product. Examples of product-intrinsic stimuli are “fat content” and “special ingredients”. Examples of product-extrinsic stimuli are “product brand” and “price”. Product attributes are the benefits consumers’ want from a product, whereas consumers use stimuli as indicators of the extent to which these attributes are present. Following means-end chain theory attributes are thus more abstract than stimuli (the means), and can be construed as the consequences (the ends) of using the product as they are perceived by the consumer (Ophuis and Van Trijp, 1995). Attributes can be divided into experience and credence attributes. Experience attributes concern product properties that can be perceived and evaluated by consumer usage such as the taste of a new food product. Credence attributes concern product properties that either cannot be perceived and evaluated by the consumer in the usage situation or can only be evaluated through expert assistance, e.g. the long-term health effects of certain food products. The framework proposes that consumers form expectations towards the attributes of a food product on the basis of some intrinsic and/or extrinsic stimuli (relation A). The attributes are then experienced in the usage situation. However, the experiences made in the usage situation should not be regarded as independent of the expectations formed in the buying situation (relation B). In the usage situation, the consumer may find that the quality attributes were not as good as expected. As a result, the consumer may choose to “modify” the experienced quality so that it will to a greater extent comply with the expectation level (assimilation) and thereby reducing the degree of cognitive dissonance.

There are also other theories concerning the reduction of cognitive dissonance. Contrast theory claims that the evaluation of quality moves in the opposite direction of expectations, i.e. the size of the expectation gap is exaggerated. Assimilation-contrast theory posits that assimilation is used if the expectation gap is small, while contrast is used if the expectation gap is large. General negativity theory suggests that the consumer will not adjust experienced quality and therefore will remain dissatisfied (Rozin and Tuorila, 1993). Recent research supports the notion that expectation may influence experience. In a study of cue utilization and quality perception with regard to branded beef Bredahl (2003) found that consumers’ expected eating quality significantly affected consumers’ experienced eating quality. In line with these findings, results obtained by Hurling and Shepherd (2003) suggest that consumer expectations of liking for food generated by the appearance of a cooked product is related to expectations of liking from viewing the raw product. In the literature, it is well established that consumers prefer good quality to bad quality (Richardson et al., 1994; Zeithaml, 1988; Steenkamp, 1989). In the framework, we therefore also include a link between experienced quality and buying intention (relation C). Emotion and buying intention: The perceived quality concept can at the individual level be seen as representing a cognitive (or instrumental (Alderson, 1957)) view on consumer decision making, in the sense that it for the particular individual can be seen as the result of an evaluation procedure. Steenkamp (1989, p. 100) conceptualizes perceived quality as “an overall judgment that is based on the perception of the product on the quality attributes”. In contrast, emotions represent an affective view on consumer decision-making. Emotions are caused by consumers’ exposure to specific stimuli. Surprise (an emotion) may for instance be caused by the exceptionally low price of an item or by an unexpected gift (Derbaix and Pham, 1991). While emotions may be based on the appraisals (i.e. consciously or unconsciously evaluative judgment and interpretation of stimuli (Bagozzi et al., 1999)) consumers make to stimuli in the environment, emotions should not be viewed as the direct results of an evaluation procedure but merely as the results of an affective response to the appraisals (Bagozzi et al., 1999). Several researchers (e.g. Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982; Batra and Ray, 1986) have suggested that the “traditional” cognitive view should be complemented with taking into account consumers’ affections like the possible emotional responses to the perception and judgment of consumption experiences. In the framework we follow such recommendations and propose a link between consumers’ experienced quality and consumer emotion, which we conceptualize as pleasure-feeling (relation D). Emotions are also known to be action-oriented (Bergenwall, 1998) and may lead to both internal (mental) and external (behavioral) reactions. In the framework, we therefore propose a link between pleasure-feeling and buying intention (relation E), suggesting that consumers experiencing high pleasure will have more positive buying intentions than consumers experiencing less pleasure. Situational factors. In his often-cited work Belk (1975) found that situational influence was either the largest or second largest contributor to variance in subject’s preference for different types of products. In a study of brand loyalty and situational effects Lim and Razzaque (1997, p. 99) suggest that “the effects of situational variables on consumer behavior . . . may be too great to be ignored”. Meiselman (1996, p. 247) argues, “when we think of eating context or situation, perhaps the most important area – and the most

Consumer perception of food quality 503

BFJ 107,7

504

neglected – is the eating situation itself. The eating situation includes all of those variables in the physical/social eating environment”. Nevertheless, situational variables has often been regarded by researchers as unwanted “noise” which may threaten the possibilities of finding relationships between stimuli and one or more dependent variable(s) in experiments (see Ophuis and Van Trijp, 1995). Many researchers have emphasized that the study of consumer perceptions and wants must take into account the possible influence of the product use situation. Jun and Jolibert (1983, p. 264) argue, “the word ‘quality’ is meaningless apart from the expected use(s)”. Cardello (1995, p. 165) suggests that “food quality is subject to the same contextual effects as other perceptual based phenomena”. Cardello et al. (2000, p. 203) point out that ”the liking/disliking of food can be affected by a variety of contextual factors that are independent of the food itself”. Drawing on such findings, we thus include in our framework situational variables as possible moderators of the consumer quality perception process. Personal variables: Previous research suggests that consumer involvement, past experiences, competencies, quality consciousness, preferences, educational level, age, and involvement all constitute personal variables, which may moderate consumers’ perception of food quality (Bauer et al., 1995; Richardson et al., 1994; Steenkamp and Meulenberg, 1985, 1989; Bredahl, 2003). Research hypotheses and research questions The investigated food products Based on the proposed framework, this study investigates consumers’ quality perception process in relation to two food products: shrimps and solid cheese. Four criteria guided the selection of the food products: (1) The products should be offered in supermarkets, specialty food stores, etc. without any brand attached to the products. We wished to avoid well known brands in the studies since respondents may already have gained experiences towards such brands and may therefore “know” the performance of the products in advance (Andrews and Valenzi, 1971; Render and O’Connor, 1976; Dodds, 1991). (2) Interviews (n ¼ 10) with consumers indicated that consumers rather carefully buy cheese and shrimps. The products are not chosen randomly but attention is given to several aspects of the products. Interviews and discussions with experts from the two industries strongly supported this notion. Thus, we might expect that consumers actually form beliefs toward various quality attributes when considering shrimps and solid cheese. (3) The products should not require any complex cooking procedures. (4) The food products should differ in terms of their perceived “luxuriousness” to take into account the possible effect of the food product chosen on consumer emotions. In Denmark (the country in which the study was carried out), the chosen type of shrimps is typically considered to be a more luxurious product than the chosen type of cheese (Hansen, 2001). As the framework in Figure 1 includes numerous personal and situational variables, it is very comprehensive and should therefore primarily be used as a frame of reference to generate hypotheses about consumer’s perception process in relation to food quality rather than to predict the quality perception process. Following such premises, we propose a number of research hypotheses and questions involving

price, physical appearance, quality attributes, pleasure feeling, involvement, and physical surroundings. Research hypotheses 1-6 Price. An overwhelming amount of research on cue utilization theory has revealed a number of stimuli, which may be used by consumers as indicators of quality, including “country-of-origin” (Insch and McBride, 1998; Elliot and Cameron, 1994; Peterson and Jolibert, 1995), “product composition” (Olson, 1972), “brand name” (Dodds, 1991), “store name” (Dodds, 1991; Dodds, 1995), “marketshare” (Hellofs and Jacobson, 1999), and “price” (Leavitt, 1954; Shapiro, 1973; Brooker et al., 1986). For good reasons, price is perhaps the most researched stimuli. Price is the market’s most important economic variable. Like advertising, product design, quality, level of service etc., a company can use price to influence demand. However, in contrast to other variables in the company’s marketing mix, price is the only one that provides the company with an income (all the other variables are costs), just as price is always a factor whenever a buyer is assessing a product or service. From an economic point of view, there are at least two possible reasons for an expected positive correlation between price and quality. One is cost (quality costs money; consequently the quality of expensive products will be better). The second is demand (consumers demand quality; consequently quality products will be in greater demand, which will push prices up). The price of a product serves therefore at least two functions: (1) a higher price may signal higher quality (the “positive” function of price); and (2) the price denotes the sacrifice the consumer must make to obtain the product (the “negative” function of price) (Zeithaml, 1988). According to cue utilization theory consumers may use high price as an indicator of high quality. Unfortunately, the effect of price on perceived quality remains ambiguous in the empirical literature. However, Rao and Monroe (1988) found that subjects rely less on price as a stimuli as familiarity with a product increases. This finding receives support from Bredahl (2003) who suggests that price cues will more often be used for unbranded products. In such cases, consumers may be “forced” to use the information, which is inherent in the price stimuli. In this study, in which we use unbranded food products, we therefore hypothesize as follows: H1. Price will positively affect perceived quality attributes in the buying situation. Physical appearance. It is evident that the classification of stimuli into product-internal and product external stimuli has a number of advantages. When a company formulates its action parameters, it is important to know to what extent packaging or price should be varied in order to ensure that consumers associate the product with quality advantages. The variation of, e.g. packaging may strongly influence the perceived appearance of a product (Hummel et al., 2003). Research also suggests that the perceived physical appearance may affect consumers’ expectations of liking for a food (Hurling and Shepherd, 2003). However, the perceived physical appearance of a food product may be difficult to classify as either an intrinsic or extrinsic stimuli, as it would probably be influenced by both categories. Thus, physical appearance can be described as a holistic perception (a gestalt), which in the perception process only exists through the presence of the consumer. In other words, physical appearance is a mental construction. Thus, if one

Consumer perception of food quality 505

BFJ 107,7

506

wants to investigate the importance of physical appearance on consumers’ quality perception, physical appearance cannot be manipulated directly but should instead be seen as the result of the consumer’s holistic perception of the intrinsic and/or extrinsic stimuli, which are present in the perceptual context. Interviews with consumers and retailers suggested that mainly “price” and “physical appearance” are used as choice variables when consumers decide which shrimps, or cheese, they wish to buy in a specialty food store or in a supermarket’s fresh food department. In accordance with these considerations, we hypothesize as follows: H2. The more a consumer likes the physical appearance of a food product the more positive the consumer will perceive the quality attributes in the buying situation. Perceived quality attributes. Previous research (e.g. Bredahl, 2003; Montfort et al., 2000; Spreng and Mackoy, 1996) suggests that consumers’ expectations about the performance of a product may have a direct influence on perceptions of performance. Furthermore, as claimed to be typical in food studies (Hurling and Shepherd, 2003; Deliza and MacFie, 1996) consumers can be thought to assimilate expectation levels to performance levels in order to avoid the cognitive dissonance that could be the result of a divergence between expected performance and perceived performance. If the discrepancy between expectations and experience is large a change from assimilation to contrast may, however, occur (Hurling and Shepherd, 2003). In this study, it is expected that the impact of expectations will show assimilation rather than contrast effects. An assimilation mechanism is expected because relative minor changes were made to the products during this study (see “experimental design” section). Hence, it is hypothesized that: H3. Consumers’ perception of quality attributes in the buying situation (expected quality) will positively affect consumer perception of quality attributes in the usage situation (experienced quality). It is almost universally assumed that the evaluation of quality is closely connected to purchase decision (see Charters and Pettigrew, 2003). For instance, in an experimental study of consumers’ perception process in relation to saveloy and gammon Steenkamp (1989) found that perceived quality significantly affected purchase intention. Thus, we hypothesize as follows: H4. Consumers’ perception of quality attributes in the usage situation (experienced quality) will positively affect consumers’ intention to buy. Pleasure-feeling. Perceived quality and pleasure-feeling (emotions) are related concepts in the sense that they both represent possible outcomes of consumer’s exposure to stimuli in the environment (Mehrabian and Russel, 1974; French et al., 1994; Bagozzi et al., 1999). However, while perceived quality can be regarded as an evaluative judgment (Steenkamp, 1989; Castleberry and McIntyre, 1992) pleasure-feeling represents an affective response to the perception of stimuli (Richins, 1997). Cohen and Areni (1991) use the term affect to represent “valenced feeling states”, with emotions as a specific example. Also, emotions are perhaps more intense (Bagozzi et al., 1999) and last shorter in the consumer’s mind than perceived quality (Derbaix and Pham, 1991). A consumer who perceives a product to be of “good quality” may form an

affective response to this appraisal (Bagozzi et al., 1999). Since consumers seem to prefer good quality to poor quality (e.g. Steenkamp, 1989; Hansen and Solgaard, 2004) it is therefore likely that the experience of good quality could cause consumers to produce a positive emotional response. Based on such considerations, we hypothesize: H5. Consumers’ perception of quality attributes in the usage situation (experienced quality) is positively related to pleasure-feeling. Bergenwall (1998, p. 14) suggests that “emotions usually lead to some kind of actions by the individual, i.e. they have some kind of consequences”. As an example, the experience of a rude employee of a service company may lead to some internal reactions, e.g. “displeasure” (affect). These internal reactions may lead to complaining actions by the consumer (Bergenwall, 1998). In line with this view Zajonc (1980) and Zajonc and Markus (1982) suggest that an individual can take action based on an emotional feeling, that is without or with just a low level of cognitive activity. Also, within the field of retailing research it is well established that retailers manipulate the physical environment to create specific emotional reactions among customers. The reason is that positive emotions seem to positively affect consumer purchase behavior (Kotler, 1974; Babin and Darden, 1996). Swinyard (1993) found, however, no support for the hypothesis that consumers in a good mood will have more positive shopping intentions than those in a bad mood. However, Bagozzi et al. (1999, p. 186) maintain that “emotions have implications for action and for goal attainment”. Based on such considerations, we hypothesize that: H6. Pleasure-feeling is positively related to buying intention. Research questions 1 and 2 Previous research suggests that when consumers are highly motivated, they scrutinize message relevant information in detail and generate more attribute-related thoughts (Mitra, 1995; Petty et al., 1983). In these situations, the impact of extrinsic stimuli on consumer quality perception, such as price, can be expected to be minimal. However, attribute-related thoughts are only possible to the extent that internal (past experiences) and/or external (e.g. information on package) information is available to the consumer. If quality-related information is only available on a more limited basis one should expect high-involved consumers to carefully explore this limited information (e.g. perceived price and/or perceived physical appearance) for the purpose of reducing purchase risk. Moreover, if consumers are positively motivated (in which case they may find food purchasing enjoyable) or negatively motivated (in which case they may regard food purchasing as something to be done with) they may process more positive (or negative, respectively) quality information than negative (or positive, respectively) (see Swinyard, 1993) and may therefore be expected to perceive the quality of the manipulated food products in a more positive (or negative, respectively) way. In general, involved consumers may at the same time perceive the quality information in a more critical way to reduce the risk of making a bad choice. In line with such considerations, we find it relevant to explore as follows: RQ1. To what extent will consumer purchase involvement moderate: (a) the influence of price on expected quality attributes?; (b) the influence of physical appearance on expected quality attributes?; and

Consumer perception of food quality 507

BFJ 107,7

508

(c) the influence of expected quality attributes on experienced quality attributes? Food consumption is not just a matter for the individual consumer but a social matter too. We do not just ingest nutrients; we eat food (see Ritson et al., 1986). What we eat, with whom we eat, how we prepare our food, the rules, meanings and rituals that we may attach to food consumption are all social matters. Food consumption is therefore a complex field which covers a multitude of activities and which may involve both functional and social uncertainty. Learning about cultural rules enables us to act “acceptable” in social situations and enables us to decode and understand the behavior of others. The situational context in which foods are eaten may be guided by cultural norms. One such “norm” is the appropriateness of the food for a particular usage situation (Schutz, 1988; Cardello et al., 2000). While red meat may be very well suited for a formal dinner party its judged liking and consumption may well suffer if served for breakfast. Another cultural norm may be related to how to organize the physical surroundings in the usage situation (Mennel et al., 1992). As suggested by Hansen (1996, 1998) we organize the physical surroundings differently in different food usage situations. In special situations (e.g. situations with guests), we set up elegant physical surroundings to express that focus is not primarily on nutritional value but on enjoyment and on creating a good atmosphere. In contrast, in daily situations the physical surroundings are arranged less elegantly to express that focus is primarily on surviving and on getting a good nutritional value. It can therefore be suggested that consumers have learned to associate elegant physical surroundings with positive emotional feelings (pleasure). Consequently, it is investigated to what extent elegant physical surroundings will positively moderate the perceived quality-pleasure feeling relation (as hypothesized in H5): RQ2. To what extent will physical surroundings moderate the perceived quality-pleasure feeling relation (see H5)? Experimental design The proposed framework along with the research hypotheses and questions guided an experimental investigation of consumers’ quality perception process in relation to shrimps and solid cheese. Overall design of experiments Two 2 (high/low price) * 2 (high/low purchase involvement) * 2 (less elegant physical surroundings/elegant physical surroundings) between subjects design was carried out. Subjects were a total of 320 graduate students from the Copenhagen region. A total of 160 students participated in each experiment. Price, physical appearance and purchase involvement were all manipulated as between subjects factors in a simulated buying situation. Physical surroundings were manipulated as a between subjects factor in a simulated usage situation. Subjects were first exposed to the conducted manipulations concerning the buying situation and were then exposed to the manipulation concerning the usage situation. Following the proposed framework purchase involvement (personal variable) and physical surroundings (situational variable) are both treated as moderating variables in the analysis of the experimental results.

Experimental procedure The experimental procedure was as follows. One at the time subjects were welcomed and each subject was then guided to a neutral room containing two chairs, one table, and one dish containing the shrimps or the cheese. For the purpose of manipulating the level of purchase involvement (see, e.g. Antil, 1983; Ratchford, 1987) subjects participating in the experiment concerning shrimps (experiment I) were asked to imagine that they intended to buy shrimps for an everyday dinner (80 subjects) or for a dinner party with guests (80 subjects), respectively. Subjects participating in the experiment concerning cheese (experiment II) were asked to imagine that they intended to buy solid cheese for an everyday breakfast (80 subjects) or for use as dessert at a dinner party with guests (80 subjects), respectively. In each of the two groups of 80 subjects in both experiments, half of the subjects were additionally exposed for a price sign displaying a low price, whereas the other half of the subjects were exposed for a price sign displaying a high price. Thus, in each experiment the manipulated buying situation consists of four “cells”, each comprising 40 subjects. Subjects were asked to respond to questions concerning quality attributes, the appearance of the shrimps/cheese, and price. After completing the tasks concerning the manipulated buying situation the respondent was guided to another room for the purpose of attending the manipulated usage situation. Half of the subjects who were instructed to purchase shrimps/cheese for an everyday dinner/everyday breakfast were exposed to the ordinary physical surroundings, whereas the other half was exposed to the elegant physical surroundings. Similar, half of the subjects who were instructed to purchase shrimps/cheese for a dinner party with guests were exposed to the ordinary physical surroundings, whereas the other half were exposed to the elegant physical surroundings. In the usage situation, subjects were exposed to the same kind of food product (shrimps or cheese) as they had been exposed to in the buying situation. The subject was given time (approximately 1 min) to obtain an impression of the physical surroundings present. After the subject was seated s/he was asked to butter cover a slice of white bread with shrimps, or alternatively, with cheese. After tasting the shrimps, or the cheese, the subject was asked questions concerning, e.g. quality attributes and questions related to the consumers’ feeling of pleasure. Subjects used between 20 and 35 minutes to complete the experimental procedure. Experimental manipulations and manipulations check Price. The price-level was manipulated in the experiments by setting a low price and a high price, respectively. At the end of the experiments price-manipulations were measured by exposing subjects to the following statements: . “Compared to the average market price of shrimps/cheese the price of these shrimps/this cheese is in my opinion”. A seven-point semantic scale with end-point “much lower” and “much higher” was employed. . “In my opinion the price of these shrimps/this cheese is”. A seven-point semantic scale with scale-end points “very low” and “very high”, was employed. A one-sided group means t-test for subjects exposed to low and high prices, respectively, resulted in a t-value of 2 5.292 ( p-value , 0.001) for shrimps, and a t-value of 2 9.732 ( p-value , 0.001) for cheese. The “low price” was in both

Consumer perception of food quality 509

BFJ 107,7

510

experiments perceived to be just below marketprice (3.83, shrimps; 3.18, cheese) on the semantic scale concerning statement (1), while the “high price” in both experiments was perceived to be just above average marketprice (4.93, shrimps; 4.84, cheese). Hence, it can be assumed that the manipulations of price are within the consumers acceptable price range (Gabor and Granger, 1966). Perceived physical appearance. At the end of the experiments concerning the manipulated buying situation subjects’ perceptions of the physical appearance of the two food products was measured by obtaining subjects’ response to the following statements: . “The physical appearance of these shrimps/this cheese is in my opinion”. Scale end-points were “highly unappetizing” and “highly appetizing”, respectively. . “The physical appearance of these shrimps/this cheese is in my opinion”. Scale end-points were “highly indelicate” and “highly delicate”, respectively. Involvement. As mentioned previously, the level of involvement was manipulated by setting two different buying purposes. (1) Low involvement (LI): buying shrimps for daily purposes. (2) High involvement (HI): buying shrimps for guest purposes. The manipulations of the intended purpose of usage were measured and checked by Mittal’s (1989) Purchase Involvement Scale. If the manipulations had succeeded it should be expected that subjects who were asked to buy shrimps or cheese for guest purposes would score higher on the involvement scale compared to subjects who were asked to buy for daily purposes. A one-sided group means t-test resulted in a t-value of 2 2.190 ( p-value ¼ 0:015) for shrimps, and a t-value of 2 1.742 ( p-value ¼ 0:042) for cheese. Both these results indicate that subjects perceived the manipulations of the task-variable as intended. Physical surroundings. On the basis of the above-mentioned explorative studies (n ¼ 10), two different usage situations were constructed and manipulated. One usage situation was constructed to represent elegant physical surroundings and one usage situation was constructed to represent less elegant physical surroundings. The manipulation of the physical surroundings in the experiments is shown in Table I. Manipulation checks of the variation in the physical surroundings were carried out by asking another 20 students to compare the two types of surroundings. All subjects perceived the manipulated elegant surroundings to be more elegant than the manipulated less elegant surroundings. Other variables measured in the experiments Attributes. Basically, food quality can be looked at from two viewpoints: (1) from an objective point of view; and (2) from a subjective point of view. While the objective quality can be measured independently of the consumer, the subjective food quality builds on consumers’ quality perceptions. Unfortunately, an extensive literature review did not provide a conceptual base of attributes, which can be connected to consumers’ perceptions of the quality of the two

Less elegant surroundings Identical elements 1 table 1 plate 4 chairs 1 knife 1 dish 1 bread cut in slices Unidentical elements Neon light 1 bottle of water 1 ordinary glass 1 packet of butter

Elegant surroundings 1 1 4 1 1 1

table plate chairs knife dish bread cut in slices

2 candlelights 1 elegant bottle of water 1 elegant glass Butter served in slices 2 small picturesque lamps 1 white damask tablecloth 1 flower in a vase

products. Instead an explorative study was conducted with the purpose of identifying attributes that are considered by consumers when assessing the quality of shrimps and solid cheese. Interviews were performed with experts from the two industries, with specialty stores and supermarkets offering one (or both) of the products, and with a varied selection of food consumers (n ¼ 10, see above). Based on these studies, together with the general suggestions made by various authors on quality properties (e.g. Bredahl, 2003; Steenkamp, 1989; Zeithaml, 1988), we constructed a list of attributes that we expect consumers will relate to the quality of the two food products (Table II). In Table II we distinguish between experience and credence quality attributes. In both the manipulated buying and usage situations attributes were measured using seven-point Likert scales. In the buying situations, respondents’ expectations that the food product comprises each attribute were measured, whereas respondents’ evaluations (experience attributes) or expectations (credence attributes) of the attributes were measured in the usage situation. Pleasure-feeling. Consumer research has produced a number of scales for the measuring of consumer emotions, among these Izard’s (1977) Differential Emotions Scale (DES) which includes ten emotional emotions (interest, enjoyment, surprise, distress, anger, disgust, contempt, fear, shame/shyness, and guilt) and Mehrabian and Russel’s (1974) PAD Scale which includes three, more general emotional dimensions: pleasure, arousal, and dominance. In the present study the pleasure dimension of Mehrabian and Russel’s PAD Scale was used to represent emotions. The pleasure dimension of the PAD can be described as: “pleasure is a feeling state that can be assessed readily with self-report, such as semantic differential measures, or with behavioural indicators such as smiles, laughter, and, in general, positive versus negative facial expressions” (Mehrabian and Russel, 1974, pp. 18-19). Buying intention. Buying intention was measured by obtaining the respondent’s response to the following statement: “In your opinion, how likely is it that you would buy these shrimps/this cheese at some time in the near future?” Answers were given on a seven-point semantic scale ranging from “totally unlikely” to “most likely”.

Consumer perception of food quality 511

Table I. The manipulated physical surroundings displayed

BFJ 107,7

512

Table II. List of investigated attributes

Shrimps Experience attributes Solid consistency Fat Salty Freshness Taste Credence attributes Additives Healthiness Keep able Nutritional value Naturalness

Solid cheese Solid consistency Fat Freshness Taste Additives Healthiness Keep able Nutritional value Naturalness

Results Exploratory factor analysis Explorative factor analysis operates as a generator of hypotheses of factorial structures. In contrast, confirmatory factor analysis investigates the hypotheses of those structures (Du Troit et al., 1999). When the factorial structure of a construct is not known, it is advisable to apply exploratory factor analysis prior to confirmatory factor analysis (Jover et al., 2004). A principal components analysis was thus applied to respondents’ ratings for the expected and experienced attributes (Table III). For both shrimps (experiment I) and cheese (experiment II) a clear two-component structure emerged. In experiment I, identical factor structures were detected for expected and experienced quality; six attributes had salient loadings and no attributes had a salient loading on more than one dimension. Component 1 (eating quality) was positively related to solid consistency, freshness, taste, and healthiness. Component 2 (naturalness) was negatively related to additives and positively related to naturalness. For both expected and experience quality fat, salty, nutritional value, and keep able did not load convincingly (loading , 0.40 (Hair et al., 1998)) on either of the components. Identical factor structures were also detected for expected and experienced quality in experiment II. In this experiment, five attributes had salient loadings and no attributes had a salient loading for more than one dimension. Component 1 (eating quality) was positively related to freshness, taste, and healthiness. Component 2 (naturalness) was negatively related to additives and positively related to naturalness. For both expected and experienced quality fat, nutritional value, and keep able did not load convincingly (loading , 0.40) on either of the components. As can be seen, solid consistency load significantly on eating quality in experiment I but not in experiment II. The explanation for this result is probably that while consumers’ may link solid consistency to freshness for shrimps, solid consistency is most likely a matter of individual preference in relation to cheese. Structural equation modelling For the purpose of testing H1-H6, the conceptual model in Figure 1 was – for both experiments – translated into a LISREL model consisting of a measurement part (confirmatory factor analysis) and a structural equation part (simultaneous linear regression). The relationships between the variables were estimated by maximum

Eating quality Shrimps Expected quality Solid consistency Freshness Taste Healthiness Additives Naturalness Cumulative variance Experienced quality Solid consistency Freshness Taste Healthiness Additives Naturalness Cumulative variance Solid cheese Expected quality Freshness Taste Healthiness Additives Naturalness Cumulative variance Experienced quality Freshness Taste Healthiness Additives Naturalness Cumulative variance

Naturalness

0.69 0.78 0.70 0.68 (%)

40.5

Consumer perception of food quality 513

20.88 0.79 60.9

0.66 0.86 0.85 0.67 (%)

50.4

20.92 0.66 67.9

0.84 0.84 0.74 (%)

56.1

20.77 0.86 72.1

0.58 0.68 0.91 (%)

50.7

20.88 0.66 67.9

likelihood estimation. The framework was tested using a two-stage analysis (see Anderson and Gerbing, 1988). First, the measurement model is developed by conducting confirmatory factor analysis on the applied multi-item scales. Next, the measurement model and the structural equation paths are estimated simultaneously to test the proposed model (overall model). By applying this two-stage method we want to ensure that the measures of the constructs are reliable and valid before attempting to draw conclusions about relations between constructs. Measurement model The results of the measurement model, including the standardized factor loadings, SE, t-values, construct reliabilities, and proportion of extracted variance are for both experiments displayed in Table IV. All factor loadings were significant (p , 0:01) which demonstrate that the chosen generic questions for each latent variable reflect a single underlying construct. The reliabilities and variance extracted for each variable indicate that the model was

Table III. Identification of latent constructs (principal components analyses, varimax rotation)

Table IV. Confirmatory factor analyses results 0.77 0.71 0.73 0.62 0.68 0.79 0.47 – 20.90 0.62 0.65 0.94 0.86 – 20.90 0.62 0.81 0.82 0.77 0.74

0.66 0.79 0.62 0.79 0.64 0.66 0.63 0.62 2 0.57 0.87 0.57 0.82 0.78 0.64 2 0.51 0.92 0.68 0.78 0.63 0.56

– 0.17 0.18 0.15

– 0.35

– 0.23 0.20 0.16

– 0.24

– 0.28 0.19 0.19

– 0.15

– 0.10

Exp. I

SE

– 0.10 0.09 0.10

– 0.09

– 0.04 0.03 –

– 0.09

– 0.13 0.09 –

– 0.17

– 0.12

Exp. II

2

_j

– 7.08 6.33 5.78

– 5.62

– 7.28 7.00 6.41

– 5.50

– 5.64 5.41 5.44

– 6.05

– 9.68

– 11.08 10.26 –

– 7.14

– 16.91 15.47 –

– 8.85

– 7.40 5.88 –

– 7.05

– 6.36

t-value Exp. I Exp. II

0.76

0.70

0.80

0.69

0.73

0.67

0.69

2

0.87

0.74

0.86

0.76

0.69

0.62

0.71

Construct reliabilityb Exp. I Exp. II

514 0.45

0.55

0.50

0.54

0.41

0.50

0.53

0.62

0.60

0.68

0.62

0.44

0.44

0.55

Extracted variancec Exp. I Exp. II

,0.3 and was therefore excluded from the applied measurement scale; Buying intention is measured by a single item and is therefore not displayed

Exp. II: Experiment II (solid cheese); In relation to the measurement of pleasure-feeling two items had (in each of the experiments) an item-total correlation

_

SðStd loadingsÞ SðStd loadingsÞ Notes: a The first item for each construct was set to 1; b Calculated as SðStd ; c Calculated as SStd ; Exp. I: Experiment I (shrimps); loadings2 þSjj loadingsÞ2 þSj

j1 perceived price X1 X2 j2 perceived appearance X3 X4 h1 expected eating quality X5 X6 X7 X8 h2 expected naturalness X9 X10 h3 experienced eating quality X11 X12 X13 X14 h4 experienced naturalness X15 X16 h5 pleasure-feeling X17 X18 X19 X20

Construct/indicator

Standardized factor loadinga Exp. I Exp. II

BFJ 107,7

reliable and valid. All composite reliabilities exceed 0.60 and most exceed 0.70. Variance extracted estimates were all above 0.40. The reliabilities and variance were computed using indicator standardized loadings and measurement errors (Hair et al., 1998; Shim et al., 2001). All items load significantly (t-value . 1.96) on their corresponding latent construct, which indicate that convergent validity is obtained. These initial model considerations indicate that the constructs do exist and that they are tapped by the measures used. The measurement model fits well to the data. The values of the comparative fit index (CFI ¼ 0:96, experiment I; 0.91, experiment II) are in both experiments above the recommended threshold of 0.90 for a satisfactory goodness of fit (Bentler, 1992). Also, the point estimate of RMSEA shows values of 0.04 (experiment I) and 0.07 (experiment II), which in both cases are below the recommended level of 0.08. Thus, we can conclude that the unidimensionality criterion is satisfied (Frambach et al., 2003). Discriminant validity of the applied constructs was tested applying the approach proposed by Fornell and Larcker (1981). In Table V the diagonals represent for each construct the variance extracted as reported in Table IV. The other entries represent the squares of correlations among constructs. An examination of the matrix displayed in Table V shows that the non-diagonal entries do not exceed the diagonals of the specific constructs, except for expected eating quality with experienced eating quality (experiment II: varianceexpected eating quality ¼ 0.44 , squared correlationexpected eating quality 2 experienced eating quality ¼ 0.52). However, the squared correlation is below the suggested threshold of 0.85 (see Frambach et al., 2003). Also, as a path from expected eating quality towards experienced eating quality is hypothesized, the relatively high correlation is not surprising.

Consumer perception of food quality 515

Overall model fit An investigation of the modification indices related to experiment II suggested the inclusion of two more paths in the structural equation model. Paths were suggested from expected eating quality to expected naturalness and from experienced eating

Construct 1. Perceived price 2. Perceived appearance 3. Expected eating quality 4. Expected naturalness 5. Experienced eating quality 6. Experienced naturalness 7. Pleasure-feeling

1

2

Experiment I 3 4 5

6

7

1

2

Experiment II 3 4 5

0.53

0.55

0.35 0.50

0.43 0.44

0.26 0.47 0.41

0.13 0.32 0.44

0.03 0.15 0.22

0.54

0.12 0.40 0.43 0.62

0.16 0.10 0.27

0.05 0.50

0.17 0.18 0.52 0.46 0.68

6

7

0.03 0.08 0.08 0.33 0.43 0.55 0.18 0.25 0.40 0.55 0.63 0.60 0.05 0.08 0.06 ,0.01 0.20 0.03 0.45 0.02 0.03 0.12 0.10 0.29 0.24 0.62

Notes: Diagonals represent average amount of extracted variance for each construct. Non-diagonals represent the shared variance between constructs (calculated as the squares of correlations between constructs)

Table V. Discriminant validity of constructs

BFJ 107,7

516

quality to experienced naturalness. No additional paths were suggested in relation to experiment I. Such effects are not uncommon in empirical studies. For example, a study conducted by Bredahl (2003) on consumer perception of beef quality suggests that consumers’ use experienced eating quality to predict experienced health quality. Thus, as the suggested paths receive support from comparable studies we decided to include them in the structural equation model related to experiment II. The chi square statistic was 208.03 (df ¼ 174, p ¼ 0:04) for experiment I and 263.44 (df ¼ 138; p , 0:01) for experiment II. The p-values are in both experiments below 0.05 (although the p-value is close to 0.05 for experiment I) indicating that the models fail to fit in an absolute sense. However, since the x 2-test is very powerful even a good fitting model (i.e. a model with just small discrepancies between observed and predicted covariances) could be rejected. Thus, several writers (e.g. Hair et al., 1998) recommend that the chi-square measure should be complemented with other goodness-of-fit measures. The values of the goodness of fit index (GFI) were 0.92 (experiment I), and 0.90 (experiment II), which satisfies the acceptable level of 0.90 (Bollen and Long, 1993) indicating a good overall model fit. The values of CFI were 0.97 (experiment I) and 0.94 (experiment II), which exceed 0.90. The point estimate of RMSEA was 0.04 (experiment I) and 0.07 (experiment II), which in both cases are below the threshold of 0.08. The computed values of the parsimonious fit measure showed values of 1.20 (experiment I) and 1.91 (experiment II), which in both cases fall within the proposed threshold limits for this measure (Jo¨reskog, 1970; Carmines and McIver, 1981). To conclude, support is provided for the overall models as proposed. Hypotheses testing H1-H6 are tested in this section. The next section explores RQ1 and RQ2. Standardized beta-coefficients from the estimated structural models are reported in Table VI along with R 2 values for the endogenous constructs included in the models. Several R 2 values are quite high in both experiments, indicating that the proposed model has considerable utility in assessing these constructs (expected eating quality, experienced naturalness, and buying intention). Two of the six proposed hypotheses (which are tested in this section) were fully supported in the experiments, two hypotheses were partially supported, and two hypotheses were rejected. In both experiments perceived price was neither related to expected eating quality nor to expected naturalness and H1 therefore is rejected. In contrast, H2 was fully supported in both experiments with perceived physical appearance positively related to expected eating quality (experiment I: standardized coefficient of 0.620, p-value , 0.01; experiment II: standardized coefficient of 0.523, p-value , 0.01) and with perceived physical appearance positively related to expected naturalness (experiment I: standardized coefficient of 0.467, p-value , 0.01; experiment II: standardized coefficient of 0.354, p-value , 0.01). H3 also received fully support in both experiments with expected eating quality positively related to experienced eating quality (experiment I: standardized coefficient of 0.486, p-value , 0.01; experiment II: standardized coefficient of 0.267, p-value , 0.01) and with expected naturalness positively related to experienced naturalness (experiment I: standardized coefficient of 0.623, p-value , 0.01; experiment II: standardized coefficient of 0.397, p-value ¼ 0.03). H4 was only partial supported in the experiments. While experienced eating quality in both experiments affected buying intention (experiment I: standardized coefficient of

0.523 0.354 0.267 0.397 0.889 0.207 0.714 0.020 0.018 0.504

3.44* 2.71* 4.12* 4.11* 4.43* 3.35* 3.70* 1.63 0.30

0.620 0.467 0.486 0.623 0.761 0.481 0.610 0.229 0.030

0.856 Experiment I Experiment II Coefficient of determination, R 2 0.55 0.39 0.17 0.52 0.24 0.08 0.39 0.64 0.24 0.52 0.31 0.50

0.153 0.134

Experiment II Standardized coefficient

1.43 0.79

t-value

0.183 0.103

Experiment I Standardized coefficient

Partially accepted Partially accepted Partially accepted Rejected Rejected Path not hypothesized Path not hypothesized

16.44*

Partially accepted

Accepted

Accepted

Accepted

Rejected Rejected

Test result

5.00* 1.30 4.09ª¯ 0.12 0.18 3.92

7.35*

2.85*

2.42**

3.32*

1.02 1.06

t-value

Notes: * Significant on 1 percent level; ** Significant on 5 per cent level; Test-results for RQ1 and RQ2 are displayed in Table VII

Construct Expected eating quality Expected naturalness Experienced eating quality Experienced naturalness Pleasure-feeling Buying intention

Perceived price ! expected eating quality (H1) Perceived price ! expected naturalness (H1) Perceived physical appearance ! expected eating quality (H2) Perceived physical appearance ! expected naturalness (H2) Expected eating quality ! experienced eating quality (H3) Expected naturalness ! experienced naturalness (H3) Experienced eating quality ! buying intention (H4) Experienced naturalness ! buying intention (H4) Experienced eating quality ! pleasure-feeling (H5) Experienced naturalness ! pleasure-feeling (H5) Pleasure-feeling ! buying intention (H6) Expected eating quality ! expected naturalness Experienced eating quality ! experienced naturalness

Path from/to

Consumer perception of food quality 517

Table VI. Estimation results for H1-H6

BFJ 107,7

518

0.761, p-value , 0.01; experiment II: standardized coefficient of 0.889, p-value , 0.01), the influence of experienced naturalness on buying intention was only significant in experiment I (standardized coefficient of 0.481, p-value , 0.01). H5 also received partial support. In both experiments, experienced eating quality positively affected pleasure-feeling (experiment I: standardized coefficient of 0.610, p-value , 0.01; experiment II: standardized coefficient of 0.714, p-value , 0.01). However, the effect of experienced naturalness on pleasure-feeling was insignificant in both experiments. Pleasure-feeling did not affect buying intention in either of the experiments and thus H6 is rejected. Investigation of RQ1 and RQ2 For the variables “purchase involvement” and “physical surroundings” the sample was split in two subgroups. The physical surroundings variable was split into “elegant” and “less elegant” physical surroundings. Cronbach alpha values for purchase involvement were 0.68 (shrimps) and 0.73 (cheese), respectively, which in both cases suggest a satisfactory reliability of the applied measurement scale. The purchase involvement variable was median split. To test if the measurement models were the same across groups, four separate two-group model-analyses were conducted. Two models were unconstrained and two models were estimated with the constraint that the loadings for the indicator variables on their respective latent variables are the same across subsamples. The fit measures were similar for both the constrained and the unconstrained analyses. The values of CFI were in all models close to, or slightly above, 0.90 and the values of RMSEA were in all cases close to 0.06-0.08. Thus, the individual paths could then be separately examined across subsamples. For the purpose of testing the equality of the structural paths constrained and unconstrained models the multi-group procedure suggested by Jo¨reskog and So¨rbom (1993), and recently used by Verhoef and Langerak (2001), was adopted. Following this procedure individual paths are separately examined across subsamples. Using a chi-square difference test it is tested whether the estimated path coeffients are equal. Table VII displays the results of the unconstrained models. RQ1. The findings of the conducted multi-group procedure showed that for both experiments perceived price had a significantly positive effect on expected eating quality for high-involved respondents (experiment I: b ¼ 0:496, p-value , 0.01; experiment II: b ¼ 0:630, p-value , 0.01), but not for low-involved respondents. Additionally, in experiment I perceived price was found to significantly affect expected naturalness (b ¼ 0:252, p-value , 0.05) for high-involved respondents, but not for low-involved. No significant effects of perceived price on expected naturalness were detected in experiment II. In both experiments, perceived physical appearance positively affected expected eating quality (low-involved: experiment I, b ¼ 0:718, p-value , 0.01; experiment II: b ¼ 0:569, p-value , 0.01; high-involved: experiment I, b ¼ 0:613, p-value , 0.01; experiment II: b ¼ 0:456, p-value , 0.01). No significant differences were, however, detected in the experiments across involvement-level. For both experiments, the results revealed that the paths between perceived physical appearance and expected naturalness are unlike for low-involved (experiment I: b ¼ 0:249, coefficient non-significant; experiment II: b ¼ 0:075, coefficient non-significant) and high-involved respondents (experiment I: b ¼ 0:879, p-value , 0.01; experiment II: b ¼ 0:449, p-value , 0.01). The results for

Purchase involvementa Path to RQ1 Experiment I (shrimps) Expected eating quality Expected naturalness Expected eating quality Expected naturalness Experienced eating quality Experienced naturalness Experiment II (solid cheese) Expected eating quality Expected naturalness Expected eating quality Expected naturalness Experienced eating quality Experienced naturalness RQ2 Experiment I (shrimps) Pleasure-feeling Pleasure-feeling Experiment II (solid cheese) Pleasure-feeling Pleasure-feeling

Path from

Low

High

Perceived price Perceived price Perceived physical appearance Perceived physical appearance Expected eating quality Expected naturalness

0.034 0.150 0.718* 0.249 0.463* 0.323*

0.496* 0.252** 0.613* 0.879* 0.583* 0.621*

Perceived price Perceived price Perceived physical appearance Perceived physical appearance Expected eating quality Expected naturalness

0.007 0.110 0.569 ¯ª 0.075 0.072 0.213*

0.630* 0.201 0.456* 0.449* 0.293** 0.569**

Physical surroundings Less elegant Elegant

Consumer perception of food quality 519

Experienced eating quality Experienced naturalness

0.390* 0.697** 0.215 0.232

Experienced eating quality Experienced naturalness

0.649* 0.133

0.785* 0.095

Notes: a Purchase involvement was median split; * p-value , 0.01; ** p-value , 0.05; Standardized coefficients, which are unequal across the two groups, are shown in italics. Only group-differences in which at least one coefficient is significant are marked

experiment I also revealed that expected eating quality had a significantly positive effect on experienced eating quality for both low-involved (b ¼ 0:463, p-value , 0.01), and for high-involved respondents (b ¼ 0:583, p-value , 0.01). No significant difference was detected across involvement-level. For experiment II, the findings showed that the paths between expected eating quality and experienced eating quality were unlike for low-involved (b ¼ 0:293, p-value , 0.01) and high-involved respondents (coefficient non-significant). For both experiments, the positive effect of expected naturalness on experienced naturalness was significantly higher for high-involved respondents than for low-involved respondents (high-involved: experiment I, b ¼ 0:621, p-value , 0.01; experiment II: b ¼ 0:569, p-value , 0.01; low-involved: experiment I, b ¼ 0:323, p-value , 0.01; experiment II: b ¼ 0:213, p-value , 0.01). RQ2. For experiment I, the positive effect of experienced eating quality was significantly higher for respondents exposed to elegant physical surroundings (b ¼ 0:697, p-value , 0.01) than for respondents exposed to less elegant physical surroundings (b ¼ 0:390, p-value , 0.01). For experiment II, experienced eating quality had a significantly positive effect on expected eating quality for both respondents

Table VII. Results for RQ1 and RQ2 (multi-group analysis results for unconstrained models)

BFJ 107,7

520

exposed to the less elegant surroundings (b ¼ 0:649, p-value , 0.01), and for respondents exposed to the elegant surroundings (b ¼ 0:785, p-value , 0.01). No significant difference was detected across the type of physical surroundings. For both experiments, no significant effects of experienced naturalness on pleasure-feeling were detected, regardless of the type of physical surroundings. Discussion and conclusions The results of this research showed consumer expectancies about eating quality and naturalness to be derived from physical appearance, and not from price. In both experiments perceived physical appearance positively affected expected eating quality and expected naturalness. The effects of price and physical appearance on expected eating quality/naturalness were, however, moderated by the level of purchase involvement. Interestingly, perceived price showed (in both experiments) a significant positive effect on expected eating quality for high-involved respondents, but not for low-involved respondents. Also, for experiment I the effect of perceived price on expected naturalness was higher for high-involved respondents than for low-involved respondents. This result is in contrast to previous research suggesting that poor motivated consumers more often tend to use price a quality stimuli (Mitra, 1995). On the other hand, the result is in line with other findings showing that the absence of other stimuli (e.g. brand) lead to stronger price effects among consumers (Doods and Monroe, 1985). As noted previously the effect of price on perceived quality remains ambiguous in the empirical quality literature. It is therefore very important that the effect of price is considered closely to the particular research setting. Apart from price-level, this study did not take other extrinsic stimuli into account indicating that the absence of such stimuli (e.g. brand) may in itself have increased the usage of price (by high-involved respondents) as a quality stimuli in the experiments. In this research, we sought to experimentally replicate the real-world offering of shrimps and cheese in Danish fresh food encounters (known also as delicatessen departments) in which it is common not to attach any brand, or other kinds of extrinsic stimuli, to the food products apart from price. We therefore do not suggest that the results of the present study can be generalized to other kinds of food encounters in which other kinds of stimuli than the ones used in this study may be present. Perceived physical appearance positively affected expected eating quality in both experiments. The level of purchase involvement did not moderate this effect. For both experiments, the positive effect of perceived physical appearance on expected naturalness was significantly stronger for high-involved respondents than for low-involved respondents. As for perceived price, the explanation for this result is probably that high-involved consumers are more willing to devote the necessary cognitive resources to establish links between available product information than are low-involved consumers (e.g. Celsi and Olson, 1988). The results of both experiments suggest that consumers use assimilation for the purpose of reducing the cognitive dissonance, which may arise from a gap between expectation levels and performance levels. Hence, in both experiments expected eating quality positively affected experienced eating quality and expected naturalness positively affected experienced naturalness. However, in experiment II the level of purchase involvement moderated the effect of expected eating quality on experienced eating quality. Expected eating quality showed a significant positive effect on expected eating quality for

high-involved respondents, but not for low-involved respondents. Also, the effect of expected naturalness on experienced naturalness was in both experiments stronger for high-involvement respondents than for low-involved respondents. These results are in line with previous research suggesting that high-involved consumers more likely will experience cognitive dissonance as a result of a perceived expectation-experience gap and, therefore, will be more motivated to close such gaps. In experiment II, an additional “cross over” effect was detected as expected eating quality positively affected expected naturalness and as experienced eating quality positively affected experienced naturalness. These effects, which were not hypothesized beforehand, indicating that although consumers perform a cognitive division into perceived eating quality and perceived naturalness they might not regard the quality dimensions as unrelated. These results thus underline the complexity of consumer food quality perception. The results also reveal that food consumption is not just a matter of getting nutrients but that food consumption is a psychological (cognitive-affective) matter too (see French et al., 1994). We like food products of perceived high quality. In both experiments experienced eating quality positively affected pleasure-feeling, whereas experienced naturalness showed no effect on pleasure-feeling in either of the experiment. The explanation for these findings is probably that while eating quality most likely is an affective construct, which consumers will associate with positive emotions, perceived naturalness is most likely a cognitive construct and thus more evaluative than emotional. Very interestingly, the effect of experienced eating quality on pleasure-feeling in experiment I was moderated by the type of physical surrounding in the manipulated usage situation. The positive effect of experienced eating quality on pleasure-feeling was stronger for respondents exposed to the elegant physical surroundings than for respondents exposed to the less elegant physical surroundings. These results emphasize that pleasure-feeling in the food usage situation should not only be seen as being linked to the food product itself but is also linked to the situation – in this case the physical surroundings in which the usage situation took place. References Alderson, W. (1957), Marketing Behavior and Executive Action, Irwin, Homewood, IL. Anderson, J.C. and Gerbing, D.W. (1988), “Structural equation modeling in practice: a review and recommended two-step approach”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 103 No. 3, pp. 411-23. Andrews, I.R. and Valenzi, E.R. (1971), “Combining price, brand, and store cues to form an impression of product quality”, Proceedings of the 79th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, pp. 649-50. Antil, J.H. (1983), “Conceptualization and operationalization of involvement”, Advances in Consumer Research, No. 11, pp. 203-9. Babin, B.J. and Darden, W.R. (1996), “Good and bad shopping vibes: spending and patronage satisfaction”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 35 No. 3, pp. 201-6. Bagozzi, R.P., Gopinath, M. and Prashanth, U.N. (1999), “The role of emotions in marketing”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 27 No. 2, pp. 184-206. Batra, R. and Ray, M.L. (1986), “Affective responses mediating acceptance of advertising”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 13, September, pp. 234-49.

Consumer perception of food quality 521

BFJ 107,7

522

Bauer, H.H., Hermann, A. and Gutsche, J. (1995), “Situational variation in brand choice behavior: results of an empirical study”, Journal of International Marketing and Marketing Research, Vol. 20 No. 3, pp. 115-27. Belk, R.W. (1975), “Situational variables and consumer behavior”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 2, December, pp. 157-67. Bentler, P.M. (1992), “On the fit of models to covariances and methodology to the Bulletin”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 112 No. 3, pp. 400-4. Bergenwall, M. (1998), “An overview of emotion theory: incorporating the concept of emotion into service quality research”, Meddelanden Working Papers, No. 367, Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, Helsinki. Bollen, K.A. and Long, J.S. (1993), Testing Structural Equation Models, Sage Publications, London. Bredahl, L. (2003), “Cue utilisation and quality perception with regard to branded beef”, Food Quality and Preference, Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 65-75. Brooker, G., Wheatley, J.J. and Chiu, J.S.Y. (1986), “The effects of sampling and information on brand choice when beliefs in quality differences are ambiguous”, in Lutz, R.J. (Ed.), Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. XIII, ACR, Provo, UT, pp. 272-6. Cardello, A.V. (1995), “Food quality: relativity, context and consumer expectations”, Food Quality and Preference, Vol. 6, pp. 163-70. Cardello, A.V., Schutz, H., Snow, C. and Lesher, L. (2000), “Predicitors of food acceptance, consumption and satisfaction in specific eating situations”, Food Quality and Preference, Vol. 11, pp. 201-16. Castleberry, S.B. and McIntyre, F.S. (1992), “Consumers’ quality evaluation process”, Journal of Applied Business Research, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 74-82. Celsi, R.L. and Olson, J.C. (1988), “The role of involvement in attention and comprehension processes”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 15, September, pp. 210-24. Chang, T.-Z. and Wildt, A.R. (1994), “Price, product information, and purchase intention: an empirical study”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 16-27. Charters, S. and Pettigrew, S. (2003), “I like it, but how do i know if it’s any good?: Quality and preference in wine consumption”, JRConsumers.com, No. 5, available at: www. jrconsumers.com Cohen, J.B. and Areni, C.S. (1991), “Affect and consumer behavior”, in Robertson, T.S. and Kassarjian, H.H. (Eds), Handbook of Consumer Behavior, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, pp. 188-240. Deliza, R. and Macfie, H.J.H. (1996), “The generation of sensory expectation by external cues and its effect on sensory perception and hedonic ratings: a review”, Journal of Sensory Studies, Vol. 11, pp. 103-28. Derbaix, C. and Pham, M.T. (1991), “Affective reactions to consumption situations”, Journal of Economic Psychology, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 325-55. Dodds, W.B. (1991), “In search of value: how price and store name information influence buyers’ product perceptions”, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 28, Spring, pp. 307-19. Dodds, W.B. (1995), “Market cues affect on consumers’ product evaluations”, Journal of Marketing Theory & Practice, Vol. 3 No. 2, pp. 50-63. Doods, W.B. and Monroe, K.B. (1985), “The effect of brand and price information on subjective product evaluations”, in Hirschmann, E. and Holbrook, M. (Eds), Advances in Consumer Research, Association for Consumer Research, Provo, UT, pp. 85-90.

Du Troit, S., Du Troit, M., Jo¨reskog, K.G. and So¨rbom, D. (1999), Interactive LISREL. User’s Guide, Scientific Software International, Chigaco, IL. Elliot, G.R. and Cameron, R.C. (1994), “Consumer perception of product quality and the country-of origin effect”, Journal of International Marketing, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 49-62. Fornell, C. and Larcker, D.F. (1981), “Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error”, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 18, February, pp. 77-90. Frambach, R.T., Prabhu, J. and Verhallen, T.M.M. (2003), “The influence of business strategy on new product activity: the role of market orientation”, International Journal of Research Marketing, Vol. 20, pp. 377-97. French, J.A., Blair, A.J. and Booth, D.A. (1994), “Social situation and emotional state in eating and drinking”, British Food Journal, Vol. 96 No. 1, pp. 23-8. Gabor, A. and Granger, C.W. (1966), “Price as an indicator of quality: report on an inquiry”, Economica, Vol. 32, pp. 43-70. Grewal, D. (1995), “Product quality expectations: towards an understanding of their antecedents and consequences”, Journal of Business and Psychology, Vol. 9, pp. 225-40. Hair, J.F., Anderson, R.E., Tatham, R.L. and Black, W.C. (1998), Multivariate Data Analysis, 5th ed., Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Hansen, T. (1996), “Food and quality: an explorative investigation”, Working Paper No. 4, Department of Marketing, Copenhagen Business School (in Danish). Hansen, T. (1998), “Consumers’ perceptual process in relation to food quality”, PhD dissertation, PhD series 11.98, Faculty of Economics, Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen (in Danish). Hansen, T. (2001), Food Quality – A Consumer Perspective, 1st ed., Jurist- og Økonomforbundets Forlag, Copenhagen (in Danish). Hansen, T. and Solgaard, H.S. (2004), New Perspectives on Retailing and Store Patronage Behavior – A Study of the Interface between Retailers and Consumers, Kluwer Academic Publishers, New York, NY. Hellofs, L.L. and Jacobson, R. (1999), “Market share and customers’ perceptions of quality: when can firms grow their way to higher versus lower quality”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 63 No. 1, pp. 16-25. Holbrook, M.B. and Hirschman, E.C. (1982), “The experiential aspects of consumption: consumer fantasies, feelings, and fun”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 132-40. Holm, L. and Kildevang, H. (1996), “Consumers’ views on food quality, a qualitative interview”, Appetite, Vol. 27 No. 1, pp. 1-14. Hummel, T., Delwiche, J.F., Schmidt, C. and Hu¨ttenbrink, K.-B. (2003), “Effects of the form of glasses on the perception of wine flavors: a study in untrained subjects”, Appetite, Vol. 41, pp. 197-203. Hurling, R. and Shepherd, R. (2003), “Eating with your eyes: effect of appearance on expectations of liking”, Appetite, Vol. 41, pp. 167-74. Insch, G.S. and McBride, J.B. (1998), “Decomposing the country-of-origin construct: an empirical test of country of design, country of parts and country of assembly”, Journal of International Consumer Marketing, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 69-91. Izard, C.E. (1977), Human Emotions, Plenum, New York, NY. Jo¨reskog, K.G. (1970), “A general method for analysis of covariance structures”, Biometrika, Vol. 57, pp. 239-51.

Consumer perception of food quality 523

BFJ 107,7

524

Jo¨reskog, K.G. and So¨rbom, D. (1993), LISREL 8: Structural Equation Modeling with the SIMPLIS Command Language, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ. Jover, A.J.V., Fuentes, F.J.L.M. and Fuentes, M.M.F. (2004), “Measuring perceptions of quality in food products: the case of red wine”, Appetite. Jun, W.-J. and Jolibert, A.J.P. (1983), “Revealed versus hidden attributes as determinants of perceived product quality”, Journal of Economic Psychology, Vol. 4, pp. 263-72. Kopalle, P.K. and Lehmann, D.R. (1995), “The effects of advertised and observed quality on expectations about new product quality”, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 32, August, pp. 280-90. Kotler, P. (1974), “Atmospherics as a marketing tool”, Journal of Retailing, Vol. 49 No. 4, pp. 48-64. Leavitt, H.J. (1954), “A note on some experimental findings about the meaning of price”, Journal of Business, Vol. 27, July, pp. 205-10. Lim, K.S. and Razzaque, M.A. (1997), “Brand loyalty and situational effects: an interactionist perspective”, Journal of International Consumer Marketing, Vol. 9 No. 4, pp. 95-115. Mehrabian, A. and Russel, J.A. (1974), An Approach to Environmental Psychology, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Meiselman, H.L. (1996), “The contextual basis for food acceptance, food choice and food intake: the food, the situation and the individual”, in Meiselman, H.L. and MacFie, H.J.H. (Eds), Food Choice, Acceptance and Consumption, Blackie Academic & Professional, Oxford, pp. 239-63. Mennel, S., Murcott, A. and van Otterloo, A.H. (1992), The Sociology of Food: Eating, Diet and Culture, Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, CA. Mitra, A. (1995), “Price cue utilization in product evaluations – the moderating role of motivation and attribute motivation”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 33 No. 3, pp. 187-95. Mittal, B. (1989), “Measuring purchase-decision involvement”, Psychology & Marketing, Vol. 6, pp. 147-62. Montfort, K., Van Masurel, E. and Van Rijn, I. (2000), “Service satisfaction: an empirical analysis of consumer satisfaction in financial services”, The Service Industries Journal, Vol. 20 No. 3, pp. 80-94. Olson, J.C. (1972), “Cue utilization in the quality perception process: a cognitive model and an empirical test”, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Purdue University, Indianapolis, IN. Ophuis, P.A.M.O. and Van Trijp, H.C.M. (1995), “Perceived quality: a market driven and consumer oriented approach”, Food Quality and Preference, Vol. 6, pp. 177-83. Peterson, R.A. and Jolibert, A.J.P. (1995), “A meta-analysis of country-of-origin effects”, Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 26 No. 4, pp. 883-900. Petty, R.E., Cacioppo, J.T. and Schumann, D. (1983), “Central and peripheral routes to advertising effectiveness: the moderating role of involvement”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 135-46. Rao, A.R. and Monroe, K.B. (1988), “The moderating effect of prior knowledge on cue utilization in product evaluations”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 253-64. Ratchford, B.T. (1987), “New insights about the FCB Grid”, Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 24-37. Render, B. and O’Connor, T.S. (1976), “The influence of price, store name, and brand name on perception of product quality”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 4, pp. 722-30.

Richardson, P.S., Dick, A.J. and Jain, A.K. (1994), “Extrinsic and intrinsic cue effects on perceptions of store brand quality”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 58 No. 4, pp. 28-36. Richins, M.L. (1997), “Measuring emotions in the consumption experience”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 24, September, pp. 127-46. Ritson, C., Leslie, G. and Mckenzie, J. (1986), The Food Consumer, John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY. Rozin, P. and Tuorila, H. (1993), “Simultaneous and temporal contextual influences on food acceptance”, Food Quality and Preference, Vol. 4, pp. 11-20. Schutz, H.G. (1988), “Beyond preference: appropriateness as a measure of contextual acceptance of food”, in Thompson, D.M.H. (Ed.), Food Acceptability, Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 115-34. Shapiro, B.P. (1973), “Price reliance: existence and sources”, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 10, August, pp. 286-94. Shim, S., Eastlick, M.A., Lotz, S.L. and Warrington, P. (2001), “An online prepurchase intentions model: the role of intention to search”, Journal of Retailing, Vol. 77 No. 3, pp. 397-416. Spreng, R.A. and Mackoy, R.D. (1996), “An empirical examination of a model of perceived service quality and satisfaction”, Journal of Retailing, Vol. 72 No. 2, pp. 201-14. Steenkamp, J.B.E.M. (1989), Product Quality, Van Corcum, Amsterdam. Steenkamp, J.B.E.M. (1990), “Conceptual model of the quality perception process”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 21 No. 4, pp. 309-33. Steenkamp, J.B.E.M. and Meulenberg, M.T.G. (1985), “Quality perception of food products”, Proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference of the European Marketing Academy, Bielefeld, pp. 346-66. Swinyard, W.R. (1993), “The effects of mood, involvement, and quality of store experience on shopping intentions”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 20 No. 2, pp. 271-80. Verhoef, P.C. and Langerak, F. (2001), “Possible determinants of consumers’ adoption of electronic grocery shopping in The Netherlands”, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Vol. 8 No. 5, pp. 275-85. Zajonc, R.B. (1980), “Feeling and thinking: preferences need no inferences”, American Psychologist, Vol. 35, pp. 151-75. Zajonc, R.B. and Markus, H. (1982), “Affective and cognitive factors in preferences”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 9, pp. 123-31. Zeithaml, V.A. (1988), “Consumer perceptions of price, quality and value: a means-end model and synthesis of evidence”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 52, July, pp. 2-22. Further reading Carmines, E. and McIver, J. (1981), “Analyzing models with unobserved variables: analysis of covariance structures”, in Bohrnstedt, G., Borgatta, E. and McIver, J. (Eds), Social Measurement: Current Issues, Sage, Beverly Hills, CA. Frambach, R.T., Barkema, H.G., Nooteboom, B. and Wedel, M. (1988), “Adoption of a service innovation in the business market: an empirical test of supply-side variables”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 41 No. 2, pp. 161-74.

Consumer perception of food quality 525

The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister

BFJ 107,7

526

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0007-070X.htm

RESEARCH NOTE

Food storage and disposal: consumer practices and knowledge M.J. Terpstra, L.P.A. Steenbekkers, N.C.M. de Maertelaere and S. Nijhuis Consumer Technology and Product Use, Wageningen University and Research Centre, Wageningen, The Netherlands Abstract Purpose – Consumer food handling behaviour is important in preventing food borne disease and this paper proposes examining consumer behaviour and knowledge concerning food storage and disposal. Design/methodology/approach – Interviews and observations were used to investigate the storage methods and the storage durations of various categories of food products as well as the consumers’ motives when they decide to throw away food products. The temperature of their refrigerators was also measured. Findings – The results demonstrate that consumers deal with meat and dairy products relatively hygienically, but the storage of products in other categories is more likely to lead to risks; especially because of high storage temperatures. The study also shows that the elderly handle food differently from younger people. Research limitations/implications – Knowledge of the recommended storage methods and the consequences of consuming out-of-date foodstuffs have not been investigated. This could be dealt with in a supplemental research. Practical implications – The elderly have a different purchasing policy. The older consumer of the future is likely to act differently to the present day elderly with respect to the disposal of food products. Originality/value – Reveals that consumer education about food safety, in particular food storage and food handling is recommended. Keywords Food safety, Storage, Consumer behaviour Paper type Research paper

British Food Journal Vol. 107 No. 7, 2005 pp. 526-533 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0007-070X DOI 10.1108/00070700510606918

Introduction The annual number of cases of food borne diseases in The Netherlands is estimated at a quarter of a million up to one million. The fact that patients usually omit to go to their physicians for this complaint leads to an underestimation of the actual number of cases of the disease, which makes this assessment of the prevalence of food-borne disease highly inaccurate (Becht and Ridderbos, 1998). A food-borne disease may occur as a result of the consumption of food that had been handled unhygienically due to contamination with, and possible growth of pathogens. Frequently consumers may be unaware of this and any resulting illness attributed to other causes. Food-borne diseases can sometimes have serious longer-term health consequences (Adak et al., 2002; Mead et al., 1999; Todd, 1997). Not everyone runs the same risk with notably young children, the elderly and people with reduced immune systems more prone to illness. The consequences may not only be detrimental to the

victims’ health, but result in increased sickness absence and health care requirements. This can also have financial consequences for governments and employers. According to van Klinken (2001) the causes of food-borne diseases have never been thoroughly investigated. Basically, all the links in the production/consumption chain (producer of primary products, supplier of raw materials, producer/manufacturer, distributor, retailer and consumer) can impact on food safety (van Klinken, 2001). A great deal is known about the production and distribution of foodstuffs during process and retailing. Less is known about events after purchase by the consumer, i.e. the storing, preparing and consuming of the food in the home (Meredith et al., 2001; Terpstra, 1998; Altekruse et al., 1995; Marklinder et al., 2004). With regard to food safety consumers are increasingly considered the weakest link in the chain. However, legislation controlling the domestic phase of food handling is impractical. Socio-economic variables and age affect the perception of the “risk of illness following consumption of foods”. Research by Verhoeven (2000) into consumers’ perceptions of risks with respect to food safety showed that as people grow older their perceived chance of being ill was assessed to be lower. The size of a household and the composition of a household affect the sense of risks. The more people in a family, the fewer the worries about health. The reason for this could be that a sick family member is less vulnerable and can be looked after by another member of the family. If there are young children in the family, however, the worries about health risks tend to be greater (Verhoeven, 2000). Research by Staffleu in 1996 demonstrated that women, older people and people with limited education, lower incomes and a higher awareness of health are relatively more seriously worried about food safety. In addition consumers show a certain form of optimism with respect to their own health risks as compared to those of others. It seems that people estimate a risk lower when they have influence over it themselves. Another result of this research indicates that people do not always possess sufficient knowledge to reduce the risks (Staffleu, 1996). Incorrect storage and preparation of food products and failing to get rid of these products in time may increase the chances of food poisoning. Figure 1 shows a diagram of the route followed by food after its purchase by the consumer. The chain of subsequent processes is represented, including the risk involved in the various processes (curved lines). These risk situations can lead to food borne diseases. This research is aimed at the four hatched processes, i.e. “storage unopened/fresh”, “storage opened/partly cut”, “storage of prepared product” and “getting rid” of food products. As there are indications that the way consumers handle foodstuffs in their home environments may have a major impact on the prevalence of food borne diseases (Jay et al., 1999a; Redmond and Griffith, 2003), research (Engelen et al., 2003), to clarify this situation in The Netherlands, was conducted in 2003. In this research the consumers’ behaviour, the motives for their behaviour as well as their knowledge in the field of the storage and disposal of perishable food products were investigated. Methodology The objective of the research was to investigate the behaviour, the motives and the knowledge with regard to storing and disposal of perishable food products and form part of a larger study including the microbiological examination of foods. With this

Food storage and disposal

527

BFJ 107,7

528

Figure 1. Food handling, food products and risk during domestic food preparation

aim in mind interviews were held at the homes of consumers who purchased relevant foodstuffs. The interview consisted of open and closed questions to determine the category of the household as well as demographic background information, and open questions on the respondent’s storage behaviour, the criteria applied for disposing of the products and their knowledge concerning product storage. In the interview questions were asked concerning products belonging to several categories of perishable products. These product categories had been determined on the basis of Dutch guidelines for the storage of food (Dom, 2002; Stichting Voedingscentrum, 2002a, b). Based on these criteria the following categories of perishable products were selected: meat, sliced cold meats, vegetables, fruit juices, leftovers, cheese and dairy. Although fish and soft fruit are perishable as well, and were included in the research, they are not reported on because of the limited degree in which they were found in respondents’ refrigerators. The interviews were held on the basis of the products in these categories found in the refrigerators of the respondents. Prerequisites for these products were that they had to be fresh, contained in opened packaging, been partly cut or that they were leftovers. If a respondent had several products belonging to one product category in the house, the most perishable product was selected as the basis for the questions. Two

products were selected for the product group of vegetables. Prior to use the interview format was piloted in two households. In addition the temperature of consumers’ refrigerators was measured using a calibrated glass thermometer, and the fridge contents noted. The temperature in the refrigerator was determined by measuring the temperature of water in a plastic bottle that had been kept in the door of the refrigerator (in the bottle rack) for 24 hours. It was decided to measure the temperature in the door because perishable products (dairy, produce, fruit juice) are often stored here. The research was conducted in three types of households: families with children of four years old or under, adults between 25-59 without children or with children over five years old, and over-60s. These types of households had been selected because of their different sensitivities to food borne diseases of the family members. In case of households with young children and households with elderly people the sensitivity to food borne diseases is greater than with households consisting of adults without children or with children over five years old. The respondents lived in a medium-sized town (10,000 inhabitants) in The Netherlands. The age structure of this town is comparable to that of the Dutch population (CBS, 2003). The interviews were held in June 2003. The samples for the three categories were drawn at random from lists of residents. Owing to the limited scope of the sample survey (n ¼ 33) the present findings are considered as exploratory research and the results cannot be extrapolated to the whole Dutch population. What the results can do is provide insight into the different motives, behaviours and knowledge with respect to storing and disposal of perishable food products. The guidelines provided by the Dutch Food Institution (Stichting Voedingscentrum, The Hague) were taken as reference for the proper storage duration and the correct storage method of food products. Results Respondents A total of 33 consumers (three-quarters women, one-quarter men) were interviewed: nine respondents with a family of children aged four years or under (three three-person and six four-person households), 12 respondents in the age group of 25-59 without children or with children over four years old (four three-person, one four-person and two five-person households and one surrogate family home with ten residents) and 12 over-60s (five of which were one- and seven were two-person households). Treatment and perception Meat. A majority (24 out of 33) of the respondents indicated they take great care when it comes to storing meat, as it is considered a risky product. It is kept “a few days” at most. Meat is usually stored in the freezer. Hygiene and storage life are mentioned as reasons for this. In practice most respondents consume the meat within the recommended guideline with respect to time and temperature. However, their ideas concerning the length of time meat can be stored did not correspond with the guidelines; approximately half (four out of nine) of the people with meat in their refrigerators thought its storage life was longer than recommended in the guidelines. If meat was thrown away, this was done most frequently (six out of ten) because of the

Food storage and disposal

529

BFJ 107,7

530

best-before dates mentioned on the products. In addition the appearance and the smell of the product were mentioned as reasons why meat should be thrown away. Sliced cold meats. According to the guidelines sliced cold meats should be kept in storage boxes. Sliced cold meats were kept in this way by almost half of the respondents (14 out of 29). Convenience was the motive most frequently mentioned both for storing and for not storing sliced cold meats (12 out of 26) in storage boxes. More than half of the over-60s (seven out of nine) kept sliced cold meats unclosed in the refrigerator. This occurs less frequently in the other two types of households. Reasons to throw away sliced cold meats that were mentioned most times were their appearance, the best-before dates and their smell. Older respondents hardly judge according to visible features of the product, but rely more on smell. Respondents indicated most frequently that the product is consumed within the best-before period. Over half of the respondents (20 out of 28) who had sliced cold meats in their refrigerators mentioned a period during which the cold cuts can be stored which is correct according to the guidelines. Vegetables. Over two-thirds (25 out of 45) of the vegetables found in refrigerators were not stored in the correct place. This concerns tomatoes, cucumbers and sweet peppers; they should be kept in a cool spot (12-158C) to prevent “low-temperature decay”. Convenience and delaying the ripening process were mentioned as reasons for storing these vegetables in the refrigerator. If the product was thrown away, it was done on the basis of outward features; mould and decay were often mentioned (40 out of 46). The duration of storing vegetables indicated by the respondents (27 out of 41) was in accordance with the guidelines for two-thirds of the products investigated. Awareness of the period during which vegetables can be kept, however, was inadequate for over half the respondents (26 out of 43). Fruit juices. Over one-third of the respondents had fruit juice in their refrigerators. The date of opening the container was most frequently mentioned (nine out of 23) as the motive to get rid of the fruit juice. Several respondents in households with or without children indicated that fruit juice had a limited life after opening; over-60s do not mention this. Furthermore fruit juice is, or is not, thrown away by the investigated group on the basis of the features of taste, smell and the occurrence of mould or threads in the product. In over half of the cases (14 out of 23) the duration of storing the fruit juices corresponded with the guidelines. Fruit juices were usually consumed before they needed to be thrown away. However, less than half of the respondents had knowledge of the duration of storage. Leftovers. Half of the respondents had leftovers in their refrigerators at the time of the interview. In this respect there were no differences between the three types of households. According to the guidelines, leftovers can be kept for two days, and prepared meat for two to three days. With almost half of the respondents (seven out of 17) the food was stored longer than indicated in the guideline especially in the over-60 households. If respondents disposed of leftovers, it was because of their smell, appearance or the “old age” of the product. According to over two-thirds (five out of nine) of the respondents leftovers can be kept longer than specified in the guidelines. The elderly particularly lacked knowledge of storage times.

Cheese. A majority of the respondents turned out to have perishable cheese products in their fridges. As a rule they were packets of grated cheese and pre-sliced cheese, but cream cheese was also found. In half of the cases (11 out of 22) the products were outside the best-before guidelines. Mould on the cheese was most frequently mentioned (15 out of 28) as the reason to get rid of the product. Other motives were the date on the packing and the appearance of the product. Most consumers (22 out of 25) did not know or had a wrong idea of the correct storage period for cheese, whereas one eighth (three out of 25) of them were well aware of it. Dairy. A dairy product was present in each household. The date on the packing and the taste were most frequently mentioned as the reasons to get rid of a dairy product. Adults with children aged four or younger judge almost exclusively on the basis of these two items. The other two groups also mention appearance, smell and the occurrence of mould or decay. With most respondents (27 out of 32) the usual storage time corresponds with the guidelines. Half of the respondents (16 out of 32) mentioned a maximum storage time that was longer than the one given in the guideline.

Food storage and disposal

531

Refrigeration temperatures The temperature measurements show a range from 3.8 to 11.58C (Table I) and demonstrated that in two thirds of the cases the temperature of the refrigerator was higher than the recommended maximum temperature of 78C (Consumentenbond, 1996). This was particularly true in households without children and with children over five, and with over-60s. Two measurements of over-60s have been left out because these respondents re-adjusted the temperature of their fridges during the measurement period. Discussion and conclusion Consumers claim to be careful with the storage of meat, sliced cold meats and dairy products. Other perishable products such as vegetables, fruit juices, leftovers and cheese are treated less carefully and are often kept too long. It is remarkable that respondents indicated more than once that the of use by/best before dates are adhered to as the basis for the storage time, although this date no longer applies after opening. Usually the consumers’ knowledge of food storage did not correspond with their actual storage behaviour. Most respondents think that perishable products can be stored longer than the recommended guidelines, especially knowledge of storing leftovers, fruit juices and cheese. In practice, however, most products are not kept too long. Exceptions to this are fruit juices and cheese. The

Type of household Family with at least one child of four or under 25-59 years old without children or with children over five Over 60 Total

Temperature # 78C

Temperature . 78C

Total

4

5

9

4 2 10

8 8 21

12 10 31

Table I. Refrigeration temperatures

BFJ 107,7

532

research shows that parents of young children read the information on the packing more often than older people do. Older people, on the other hand, often act on the basis of previous experience based on habit and has not been adjusted for new products and storage methods. Consumers therefore lack important knowledge about the storage and handling of food. The findings from The Netherlands agreed with those of other researchers (Jay et al., 1999b). In two thirds of the cases the temperatures of consumers’ refrigerators was higher than the guideline of 78C. For over-60s the temperature of four-fifths of the respondents refrigerators was higher than recommended. This increases the chance of decay of food products and potential pathogen growth. The over-60s are more aware of what they buy and throw fewer food products away. A possible reason may be that experience has taught these respondents how much will be eaten or may have had greater experience of food shortages/scarity. Families with children living at home buy lavishly and have an irregular style of living, frequently causing products to be left too long and to be thrown away. One- or two-person households have a better perception of how much food is needed and consequently less is thrown away. The results also indicate the economic and environmental implications of food wastage. Recent UK findings have suggested approximately 33 per cent of food grown for human consumption in the UK is thrown away (BBC, 2005). Therefore knowledge of food storage times and temperatures has economic as well as health implications. The expiry date on the product is often mentioned as the motive to get rid of a food product. Many people do not know that the use before date ceases to apply when the product has been opened. In particular parents of young children pay attention to the quality of food. In case of any doubt about the quality of a food product the children are prevented from eating the product, although parents are less strict for themselves. Most products are thrown away on the basis of outward features such as the observation of mould or discoloration. Dairy and fruit juices are judged by their smell and taste. However, while these are useful as indications of food quality they are not a reliable indication of food safety. The results of this research demonstrate that the elderly handle food differently than younger people do. For the future this means that there will be a new kind of older consumer are on their way, elderly who have not experienced food scarcity and therefore handle food differently with respect to storage and disposal. As there is evidence from this research that the limited knowledge of food handling and disposal may lead to an added health risk there is a need to extend the existing consumer information programmes in this area. References Adak, G.K., Long, S.M. and O’Brien, S.J. (2002), “Trends in indigenous foodborne disease and deaths, England and Wales”, Gut, Vol. 51, pp. 832-42. Altekruse, S.F., Street, D.A., Fein, S.B. and Levy, A.S. (1995), “Consumer knowledge of foodborne microbiological hazards and food-handling practices”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 59 No. 3, pp. 287-94. BBC (2005), “Britons throw away third of food”, 14 April, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/ uk/4443111.stm Becht, G.P.M. and Ridderbos, G.J.A. (1998), Levensmiddelen hygie¨ne, Elsevier, Maarssen.

CBS (2003), “Regionale Kerncijfers Nederland”, available at: http://statline.cbs.nl (accesse 20 May 2003). Consumentenbond (1996), Gezond koelen en vriezen, Consumentenbond, Den Haag. Dom, G. (2002), Voedsel, veilig kopen, koken en bewaren, Consumentenbond/Voedingscentrum, Den Haag. Engelen, C.G.C., de Maertelaere, N.C.M. and Nijhuis, S. (2003), In de koelkast, Onderzoek naar het bewaren en wegwerpen van snel bederfelijke levensmiddelen, Wageningen Universiteit, Wageningen. Jay, L.S., Comar, D. and Govenlock, L.D. (1999a), “A video study of Australian domestic food-handling practices”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 62 No. 11, pp. 1285-96. Jay, L.S., Comar, D. and Govenlock, L.D. (1999b), “A national Australian food safety telephone survey”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 62 No. 8, pp. 921-8. Marklinder, I.M., LIindblad, M., Eriksson, L.M., Finnson, A.M. and Lindqvist, R. (2004), “Home storage temperatures and consumer handling of refrigerated foods in Sweden”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 67 No. 11, pp. 2570-7. Mead, P.S., Slutsker, L., Dietz, V., McCaig, L.F., Bresee, J.S., Shapiro, V., Griffin, P.M. and Tauxe, R.V. (1999), “Food-related illness and death in the United States”, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol. 5 No. 5, pp. 607-25. Meredith, L., Lewis, R. and Haslum, M. (2001), “Contributory factors to the spread of contamination in a model kitchen”, British Food Journal, Vol. 103 No. 1, pp. 23-36. Redmond, E.C. and Griffith, C.J. (2003), “Consumer food handling in the home: a review of food safety studies”, Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 66 No. 1, pp. 130-61. Staffleu, A. (1996), Voedselveiligheid; de mening van de consument, v96.739, TNO-rapport, Zeist. Stichting Voedingscentrum (2002a), Bewaarkaart, brochure nr. 101, Stichting Voedingscentrum, Den Haag. Stichting Voedingscentrum (2002b), Veilig in de winkel, veilig thuis, nr 444, Stichting Voedingscentrum, Den Haag. Terpstra, P.M.J. (1998), “Domestic and institutional hygiene in relation to sustainability. Historical, social and environmental implications”, International Journal on Biodeterioration & Biodegradation;, Vol. 41 Nos 3/4, pp. 169-75. Todd, E.C.D. (1997), “Epidemiology of foodborne diseases: a worldwide review”, World Health Statistics Quarterly, Vol. 50 Nos 1-2, pp. 30-50. van Klinken, H. (2001), “Bron voedselonveiligheid nog nooit onderzocht”, Foodmanagement, Vol. 13, April, pp. 40-1. Verhoeven, M. (2000), Perceptie of waarheid? De waarheid over percepties, Wageningen Universiteit, Wageningen. Further reading Todd, P.P. (1982), Waargenomen risico, Jaarboek van de Nederlandse Vereniging van Marktonderzoekers 1982, NVM, Amsterdam.

Food storage and disposal

533

BFJ 107,7

534

British Food Journal Vol. 107 No. 7, 2005 pp. 534-536 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0007-070X

Book reviews Food Wars – The Global Battle for Mouths, Minds and Markets Tim Lang and Michael Heaseman Earthscan 2004 Keywords Food products, Public health, Diet Review DOI 10.1108/00070700510606927 It is perhaps fitting this book was conceived by its authors when the World Health Organisation (WHO) started its report on tackling diet-related disease, for both were published in 2004. The essential ethos of the book is that diet and its control by health policy has been largely overlooked in the debate about diet-related disease, that markets, large organisations and more importantly profit is what drives today’s global food industry. The title Food Wars is justifiably used given the large number of casualties that arise from the consumption of too little or too much of certain foods in the world today. The authors state their case precisely and informatively, beginning with their core arguments, defining concepts such as health, business, consumer culture, the environment and food governance. It looks to question whether the twentieth century food production of output over quality should not now be addressed, when the toll on many nation’s health is at a critical level and forecast to rise. There is of course still time to act, but the increase in population, decrease in arable land, climate changes and reductions in areas such as fish stocks will mean that this period may rapidly draw to a close. Hence the authors urge we need to act now, incorporating human and environmental health into food policy. The first part of the book succinctly reviews the food supply chain, as it presently exists, with agricultural inputs such as veterinary medicines and fertilisers and GM seeds at the top, and retail and domestic food at the bottom, arguing the need for a new system or paradigm of food policy. This incorporates the producers, life sciences and ecology. The main drivers of each of these are explored and a new environmental and health paradigm introduced. A thorough and up to date review, drawing heavily on WHO statistics, examines the unquestionable role that diet has in maintaining health is followed by a review of the policy responses to these threats, using a very readable historical perspective of public health policy. A historical review of the food industry, dominated by its growth aided by government policy, resulting in the agribusinesses of today, is an eye-opening chapter for those of us involved on the fringe of such matters. The importance of health and sustainability to the present food system is tackled well and honestly, thus the movement away from the intensification of food is introduced. Consumers are then tackled in the “battle for mouths and minds” examining the early effects of advertising on creating a homogenous consumer, which is beginning to fight back and demand better food, fully aware of the effects it has on their health.

The remaining third of the book pulls these multidisciplinary threads of economics, public health, environmentalism and food production together, reviewing the present global food problems and the possibility that governments could, facing a consumer backlash, perhaps appear too nanny like in trying to reassert control. The book offers a reasonable and helpful solution – that governments actually realise how complex food supply is and start giving it the attention it deserves, rather than the piecemeal, uncoordinated foci seen at present. The concluding chapter argues eloquently that the environmental health paradigm of the authors is the only way forward, with the ability to please not only consumers, but also governments and producers. I cannot believe that anyone could read this book without at some point wholeheartedly agreeing and disagreeing with parts of it. It will make a welcome addition to the bookshelves of any institution, academic or student studying food policy, from any angle and would also be well liked by the “new food consumer”, concerned at the state of their choices. For those in any aspect of the industry of food production it may open a welcome door of being able to please all the people all the time. Food is such an important part of everyone’s lives it is sad that we as consumers and our governments as policy producers do not give it more thought and aim to strive for the position stated by Sir John Boyd Orr in 1948, used in the introduction of the book with such effect: Freedom from lack of food, therefore, must mean making available for every citizen in every country sufficient of the right kind of food for health. If we are planning food for the people, no lower standard can be accepted.

This book explains not only how we went so wrong, but goes some of the way to explaining how we might start to put this right. Ruth Fairchild UWIC, Cardiff, UK

The Chemistry of Oils and Fats: Sources, Composition, Properties and Uses Frank D. Gunstone Blackwell Publishing-CRC Press 2004 ISBN 1405116269 £95.00 Keywords Chemistry, Oils, Fats Review DOI 10.1108/00070700510606936 This is an interesting textbook with well-balanced topics by Professor Frank Gunstone, a very well known scientist in this field. The contents, 11 chapters, cover most aspects of fats and oils regarding their sources, extraction and processing, the chemistry, analytical procedures, physical, chemical and nutritional properties and their edible and non-edible uses.

Book reviews

535

BFJ 107,7

536

Chapter 1, covers the sources and constituents of all the well known vegetable/plant fats and oils such as soybean, sunflower, olive and tall (pine) oils, to the minor vegetable oils such as avocado, hemp, hazelnut and tung oil (China wood oil which dries faster than linseed oil). The chapter also covers the other constituents naturally found in fats and oils. Chapter 2 briefly covers all aspects of oil extraction, refining and processing in quite interesting and informative manner. The chemical aspects of fats and oils were covered in three chapters illustrating the structure of fatty acids, the nomenclatures in common use, their physical and chemical properties as well as a brief description of the branched chain, oxygenated and halogenated fatty acids together with the chemistry of lipids and phospholipids. The chemical and biological synthesis of fatty acids and lipids was clearly demonstrated. The physical, chemical and nutritional properties were well covered in four chapters. Regarding the physical aspect, spectroscopic properties covered ultraviolet, ESR, NMR and MS with brief description of their principles. The other physical properties such as viscosity and refractive index were also adequately explained. The chemical properties, on the other hand, were discussed in more details. The properties related to the unsaturated centres of the fatty acids were clearly demonstrated regarding the mechanism of hydrogenation, oxidation, halogenation and other reactions. The properties of the carboxyl group, especially the reactions concerning esterification, were reasonably explained. Of interest to nutritionists concerning about the role of oils and fats in diet, chapter 9 clearly elucidated the importance of fats in health and the onset of certain diseases. The role of lipids in functional foods formulations was, unfortunately, very brief and should have been expanded further. The last two chapters were dedicated to the edible and non-edible uses of oils and fats. On their edible use, the importance of spreads such as butter, margarine and vanaspati (vegetable ghee), baking fats, frying and salad oils and confectionery fats were adequately summarised. The final chapter on the use of non-edible oils and fats was also of interest to all those involved in studying the subject. It briefly covered the basic oleochemicals production, surfactants, lubricants, biodiesel and many other compounds. In summary, the book could be considered as a good source of information on most aspects of oils and fats to academics and students alike. All chapters were well referenced with up-to-date publications together with few relevant websites to choose. Only a single typographical error was found which is quite common in some other published works. Ara Kanekanian UWIC, Cardiff, UK