A qualitative study of Southern U.S. consumers' top of the mind beliefs about the safety of local beef

Beliefs, values, and sociocultural patterns related to food safety in low- and middle-income countries: A synthesis of the descriptive ethnographic literature

Foodborne disease is intimately connected to nutrition and causes considerable harm to health and economic wellbeing. Consumers play a key role in food safety, making it essential to understand the motivations, beliefs, and practices that shape their decisions. Ethnographic research methods are well suited to understanding such topics but have rarely been applied to food safety. This paper presents an evidence synthesis of ethnographic studies, with an emphasis on food safety beliefs, values, and related socio-cultural information, and a focus on consumers' purchasing behaviors. Vendor perspectives are also briefly considered. Key findings include the importance of trust, strategies to reduce risk, the effects of economic status and gender, and broader cultural concepts about foods that influence food purchasing. The synthesis demonstrates that there are numerous social and cultural factors that influence decision making related to food safety, offering insights for the design of interventions to reduce exposure to foodborne disease and improve nutrition.

"Sometimes You Get Good Ones, and Sometimes You Get Not-so-Good Ones": Vendors' and Consumers' Strategies to Identify and Mitigate Food Safety Risks in Urban Nigeria

This paper uses detailed data from in-depth interviews with consumers (n = 47) and vendors (n = 37) in three traditional markets in Birnin Kebbi, Nigeria. We used observations from those markets to examine how consumers and vendors identify and avoid or manage food safety risks and whom they hold responsible and trust when it comes to ensuring food safety. At the level of the vendor, consumers mentioned seeking "clean" or "neat" vendors or stalls. Cleanliness was primarily related to the appearance of the vendor, stall, and surroundings; reliance on trusted, known vendors was also noted. Food products themselves were largely evaluated based on visual cues: insects, holes, and colors-with some reliance on smell, also. Similarly, vendors assessed safety of food from suppliers based on a visual assessment or reliance on trusted relationships. On the second research question, both consumers and vendors largely placed responsibility for ensuring food safety on government; when asked specifically, consumers also named specific steps that vendors could take to ensure food safety. Consumers and vendors also generally felt that they could limit many food safety risks through identifying the "good" products in the market or from suppliers. The paper discusses the implications of these results for behavior change interventions.

When food governance matters to consumer food choice: Consumer perception of and preference for food quality certifications

Food quality certifications have been widely promoted for sustainable goals and addressing consumers' increasing concern for food safety. However, these mechanisms have achieved varied success in practice. Prior research notes the importance of certification and certifying agencies in making tangible an invisible process to build consumer trust in certified food. What we have yet to understand is if and how perceived trustworthiness of food actors, such as growers and retailers in that process, influences consumers' trust in food certification and their food choices. To extend the literature on food certification in a complex network environment, we examined consumer trust in three food certification schemes which represent two types (community-based versus third-party), two certification origins (international versus domestic), and two certification standards (organic versus Good Agricultural Practice or GAP). Data were collected via in-depth interviews with 27 participants in Vietnam. These participants have similar awareness of, access to and capability to afford organic food but differ in their food choice. This is the first study exploring consumers' perceptions of community-based certification in comparison with other third-party certifications in the same market. Our study shows that the variation in consumer trust in certifications depends on their perceived trustworthiness of the food system and its actors to deliver certified food. Findings reveal that the higher the level of trust in the certification, the lower the need for trust in food actors. Conversely, the lower the level of trust in the system, the higher the need for trust in food actors. Importantly, food chain governance, the mechanisms linking growers to retailers, increase consumers' trust in certified food. The study proposes two food governance frameworks to improve consumer trust in certification schemes in developing countries.