Main factors that influence consumer trust in food

Figure 1. Word cloud showing the main topics that influence trust in food [Source: Key words from 20 most recent research papers (published between 2014-2018) using the search term ‘trust in food’, Web of Science, June 2018] [6].
Researchers have tried to compare the importance of these issues among consumers:- Lusk and Briggeman [1] put together a list of ‘food values’ and asked over 200 consumers in the US which they thought was the most important;
- Naturalness (extent to which food is produced without modern technologies)
- Taste (extent to which consumption of the food is appealing to the senses)
- Price (the price that is paid for the food)
- Safety (extent to which consumption of food will not cause illness)
- Convenience (ease with which food is cooked and/or consumed)
- Nutrition (amount and type of fat, protein, vitamins, etc.)
- Tradition (preserving traditional consumption patterns)
- Origin (where the agricultural commodities were grown)
- Fairness (the extent to which all parties involved in the production of the food equally benefit)
- Appearance (extent to which food looks appealing)
- Environmental Impact (effect of food production on the environment)
- The European study conducted as part of the Trust in Food in Europe project [2,3,4] investigated whether people felt things had changed recently in the following ‘dimensions’ of trust in food:
- Prices
- Quality
- Farming methods
- Health
- Safety
- In a study in the UK, consumers were found to consider healthy food and minimal processing to be of most importance but they were also keen to ensure that farmers are paid a fair price too. However, price, origin and whether it was grown locally were of less overall concern [5].
Trust in Our Food: Understanding Food Supply Systems

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