JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Thorough measures such as food hygiene and food defense to prevent health hazards in the food chain have become necessary in recent years. Although knowledge of food hygiene is widely known to consumers, there are currently no reports of consumer surveys on food defense.

Objective:

A web-based questionnaire survey was conducted to investigate consumer awareness of food defense and food safety. We analyzed the results focusing on how consumers behave when they find abnormalities in the food they have purchased to further our knowledge on how to promote food defense measures in the future.

Methods:

Participants responded to items related to food safety, food hygiene, awareness of food protection, and actions to be taken in three cases of abnormalities: contamination by foreign substances, bad smell of purchased food, and extra items the individual had not selected. Respondents were asked whether they would take any of five suggested actions in each case. The questionnaire items were then analyzed. For each item (with some exceptions), the respondents were asked to answer on a six-point scale. Stepwise linear regression analysis was conducted to evaluate the association between consumers’ responses and factors such as sex and age.

Results:

A total of 1442 respondents (103 men and 103 women in each age group) who answered all questions were included in the analysis. Of the respondents, 53.5% were married, and 51.0% had children. The recognition of each term was as follows: "Food security and safety": 95.2%, "Food hygiene": 95.6%, "Intentional contamination of food": 17.6%, "Food terrorism": 46.3%, and "Food defense": 17.1%. The percentages of those who answered that they would "eat without concern" in the case of "foreign substances contamination," "bad smell," or "includes unpurchased product" in the frozen food they purchased were 9.1%, 4.8%, and 30.7%, respectively. Stepwise linear regression analysis showed that men and the younger generation were more likely to respond that they would "Eat it without worrying" in case of "Contamination with foreign substances," "Bad smell," or "Extra item(s)" in the purchased product. A similar trend was observed for "Upload it on SNS," although the tendency for "Extra item(s)" was characteristically higher among "I am sociable" and "Brand-conscious" respondents.

Conclusions:

Businesses that manufacture or sell food have been taking food-defense measures to avoid health hazards caused by intentional food contamination. However, the results of this study indicate that, when food intentionally contaminated with a foreign substance is sold and delivered to consumers, there is a possibility that consumers will still eat it and suffer the resulting health hazards. Food manufacturers and food delivery service providers should consider alternative food-defense measures (countermeasures against intentional contamination with foreign substances) in the future.