A Study of Korean Consumers on Dietary Satisfaction to Sentiment Index about Food Safety : Focusing on Moderating Effects of Reliance to Food Safety Information

Abstract

Food is a kind of unconditional element for the health and survival of humanity. Eating is the most principle desire for humans among others, which can make humans feel stability and pleasure when the desire is well satisfied. The attention to food safety is increasing and food safety accidents are happening constantly, which makes the anxiety to food safety become more serious. Especially after the WTO, the floating of food hazards between countries are increasing, which makes the problems of food safety not just limited to inland but has become a matter of common interest internationally in this liberalization era. Therefore, institutional preparation and persistent management and supervision are necessary for increasing dietary life satisfaction as well as securing food safety. Meanwhile, the consumers also need to understand and trust the food safety information, and have the ability of personally pursuing a safe diet. In this study, sentiment index about food safety and dietary satisfaction were centered on Korean consumers and the factors having an effect on dietary satisfaction were analyzed.Moreover, whether the reliance to food safety information had a moderating effect on the sensory level of food safety and satisfaction to dietary food was also confirmed.The main results were different with those concluded by J. Yun and S. Joo (2014). The sensory level of food safety was decided by the reliance to food production·distribution·provision safety, anxiety to food varieties, and food token. The reliance to food production·distribution·provision safety was lower than the average level. The anxiety to food varieties was slightly higher than the average level. The reliance to food safety information was generally lower than the medium level which showed the distrust to food safety information. The satisfaction of diet by the consumers showed a slightly lower level than the average level. In addition, the reliance to food safety information had a moderating effect on the sentiment index about food safety and dietary satisfaction. Therefore, the consumer organizations or the government should actively expand various consumer education related to food safety in order to apprehend the concrete variables which can have effects on the satisfaction of diet and transform the precise information into accurate knowledge.--

Malaysian Consumers’ Reliance on Food Date Label

“…Pugle (2021) observes that unwarranted confidence and the familiarity of date labels may make consumers less attentive to educational messaging that explains the food industry's labeling system. Pugle observation finds support from a study in South Korea which reports reliance to food safety information was generally lower in South Korea compared to the US, indicating distrust to food safety information among Koreans (Lin & Lee, 2016).…”

Factors affecting the willingness to pay extra for safe food

“…The results of this study differed from the results of Jin et al [ 35 ] due to a difference in the evaluation of food safety according to age and educational background. In a study by Lin and Lee [ 36 ], it was observed that an increase in the subjective evaluation of food safety had a significant effect on overall dietary satisfaction. In other words, an increase in the subjective evaluation of food safety may increase confidence in, and satisfaction with food safety.…”