This study tested whether information on positive food additives and negative food additives had an effect on consumers’ risk perception and their willingness to accept (WTA) food with additives. Consumers’ WTA was examined via a random nth-price auction of exchanging freshly squeezed orange juice without additives for orange juice with additives. Results show that consumers’ WTA differs with the order in which information was provided. Consumers are generally more sensitive to negative than positive information on additives. Female, middle-educated consumers are more susceptible to additive information and their WTA is more likely to change, while postgraduate-educated consumers are less sensitive to additive information. Consumers with higher food-safety satisfaction have lower WTA than those who are not satisfied with food safety. However, their satisfaction is easily affected by the negative-information intervention. Interestingly, consumers with relatively good knowledge of additives had higher WTA than those with no such knowledge. This study provides insight on how to establish effective food-safety-risk communication. Government and non-government agencies need to timely and accurately eliminate food-safety scares through the daily communication and disclosure of food-safety information, as well as prevent the misguidance of negative food safety-risk information.
Food labels are used to reduce the inefficiencies that arise from information asymmetry. Since food certification and traceability labels are commonly food safety information labels used in China, it is of great importance to study producer preference and adoption behavior towards these food safety information labels. This study constructs a profile of food labels that includes different levels of four safety information attributes, including place of origin, edible agricultural products conformity certificate, traceability code, and organic/green certification. Based on the primary data of pig farmers in Zhejiang Province and using Random Parameters Logit Model and Latent Class Model, this paper analyzed farmers’ willingness to supply pork with food safety information labels and discussed farmers’ adoption behaviors in the production process. Results indicate that among the four information attributes, farmers were more likely to supply pork with the place of origin and organic/green certification. They had a negative willingness to provide pork with a conformity certificate that is certificated by a third party. The preferences for food safety information labels were heterogeneous among farmers. 13.5% of the farmers belonged to the certification-inclined class, and 37.9% of the farmers were traceability preferred. However, the adoption rate by farmers of pork with traceability labels in production was only 7.69%. Therefore, governments and markets should increase incentives for farmers to participate in the traceability system and encourage farmers to issue certificates, and further strengthen the education and training of farmers.
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