Analysing Consumer Responses to Food Safety Results of a Survey in the Netherlands

Consumer confidence in food safety appears to be under pressure as a result of several food scandals and food scares in recent years. Regaining the trust of food consumers in food production and food products is talk of the town in both government buildings and agribusiness offices. Instead of talking about consumers, this article is first and foremost about what consumers themselves think and feel about food safety. The foundation of this research is a survey among nearly 1100 Dutch consumers. Investigation focuses on food safety from the consumer's perspective in which food safety is examined comprehensively. This manifests itself in the dependent variables this research takes into consideration. With respect to the independent variables, multivariate analysis shows that both classic, socio-economic variables such as age or income, and modern variables of a socio-cultural origin are relevant in analysing and understanding contemporary food consumers.