Food Recalls and Food Safety Perceptions: The September 2006 Spinach Recall Case

Benjamin M. Onyango, Dragan Miljkovic, William K. Hallman, William Nganje, Sarah C. Condry and Cara L. Cuite
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: William Wilson

No 9679, 2007 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, 2007, Portland, Oregon from American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association)

Abstract: This paper examines public perceptions on food safety particularly relating to spinach, which was subject of countrywide recall in 2006. Results indicate that food safety perceptions may be driven by public trust/confidence in institutions whose activities may be directly or indirectly related to food safety. The results further suggest that food safety perceptions may also be related to the type of the product; for example, the public perceives frozen spinach differently from bagged fresh spinach. Additionally, the results show that low levels of objective knowledge about food pathogens and the resulting illnesses have implications on overall food safety. Results further indicate that females and Caucasians perceived the four types of spinach as safe for consumption. This outcome contrasts with views held by young people, people with education below high school and those belonging to the lower incomes groups, who viewed the four types of spinach as unsafe. More attention should be directed toward public education and outreach efforts on overall food safety targeting the youth, low income groups and those with education below high school. In addition, there is need for the regulatory agencies to put their act together, given current low levels of public trust in their role of safeguarding the food supply.

Keywords: Food; Consumption/Nutrition/Food; Safety (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30
Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/9679/files/sp07on01.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Food Recalls and Food Safety Perceptions: The September 2006 Spinach Recall Case (2008)
Working Paper: Food Recalls and Food Safety Perceptions: The September 2006 Spinach Recall Case (2007)
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:ags:aaea07:9679

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.9679

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2007 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, 2007, Portland, Oregon from American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().