The Effect of Food Safety Incidents Experience on the Probability of Purchasing GAP-certified Agricultural Products

Abstract

Consumers’ perception of food safety can be influenced not only by the information but also by relevant experiences. Nevertheless, only a few studies have investigated how consumer experiences affect food safety consumption behavior. This study analyzes whether consumers’ negative experience(incidents) regarding food safety impacts their probability of purchasing Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) certified agricultural products. The Consumer Behavior Survey for Food Data of the Korea Rural Economic Institute was used for empirical analysis. The results showed that consumers who experienced food safety incidents are more likely to purchase GAP agricultural products than those who did not. However, the GAP agricultural product consumption behaviors of elderly consumers and low-income consumers did not change noticeably even after they experienced food safety incidents.