Consumers’ Social Representations of Meat Safety in Two Selected Restaurants of Raymond Mhlaba Municipality in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

Lumka S. Dastile, Joseph Francis and Voster Muchenje
Additional contact information
Lumka S. Dastile: Department of Livestock and Pasture Science, University of Fort Hare, P. Bag X1314, Alice 5700, Eastern Cape, South Africa
Joseph Francis: Institute for Rural Development, University of Venda, Private Bag X5050, Thohoyandou 0950, Limpopo, South Africa
Voster Muchenje: Department of Livestock and Pasture Science, University of Fort Hare, P. Bag X1314, Alice 5700, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 10, 1-9

Abstract: This study was conducted at two different restaurants of Raymond Mhlaba Municipality (Alice), Eastern Cape, South Africa, to determine consumers’ social representations of meat safety. A total number of 251 people were interviewed in focus group discussions, each comprising 4–6 interviewees were conducted. Each focus group consisted of university students and staff, and members of rural communities surrounding the town of Alice. A semi-structured questionnaire comprising both closed-ended and open-ended questions was used to collect data. Consumers were concerned about the hygiene at the place of purchase and the freshness of meat. Moreover, they revealed that they were always worried about the risk of food-borne diseases. Although food-borne diseases were not cited as a significant problem, related ideas such as “ washing of hands before preparation of food to minimize food-borne diseases ” were important to consumers. Consumers indicated that meat safety at the abattoirs should be thoroughly managed given that “ hygiene during meat processing is important to prevent the occurrence of food-borne diseases”. Consumers in both retail outlets have shown to have a limited understanding of meat safety. Thus, consumers’ social representations, perceptions, and knowledge are complex and dynamic with respect to meat safety.

Keywords: consumers’ knowledge; food-borne diseases; meat supply chain; microbial contamination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/10/1651/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/10/1651/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:10:p:1651-:d:113229

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().