JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

In Japan, the problem of falsifying expiration dates on food labels of popular brands of cookies and health hazards caused by frozen Chinese dumplings raised awareness regarding food safety. In response, the concept of food defense has been widely adopted, mainly by large food manufacturing companies, as a measure to prevent intentional contamination of food with foreign substances.

Objective:

In this study, a questionnaire survey was conducted to determine how much people were willing to pay for food protection measures. In addition, participants’ personalities and considerations regarding their purchase choice in accordance with how much were they willing to pay when shopping for food and other products.

Methods:

A principal component analysis was performed on 12 questions regarding how much additional money people were willing to pay; and the principal component scores and other questions were examined for implications and other information.

Results:

The first principal component is whether one is willing to pay extra if so, how much. This propensity exists even if individual foods and amounts of money differed. However, the second principal component was the axis separating food defense and food hygiene. One of the items strongly related to this axis was "I care about clothing brands," which is not directly related to food. The concept of hygiene has been long established in Japan and therefore considered a matter of course. In contrast, the concept of of food defense has not yet fully penetrated the Japanese market because it is a relatively new concept. Our study indicates that people who considered clothing brand as an added value to the clothing itself may have similarly feelings about food defense. The third principal component constitutes the amount of money, which is thought to be determined by the amount that should be paid to maintain health.

Conclusions:

In Japan, food hygiene efforts to prevent outbreaks of food poisoning are common and have been established as the basis of food safety. Although food defense efforts are spreading, mainly in companies, it is presumed that they are valuable for the general public as supplementary measures to routine (basic) food hygiene.