식품의 안전성 및 식품첨가물에 대한 소비자 인식에 관한 연구

A Study on the Consumer Recognition of Food Safety and Food Additives

This study was to investigate consumer recognition of food safety and food additives. The results of this study are as follows: 1. When shopping for food, the food safety was rated as foremost concern for the respondents and the details checked most often were manufacture date, packing condition and axpiration date, respectively. When asked their opinion about harmful factors in relation to food safety, the most important consideration was food additives. The highest rating for credibility regarding the sources of information on food was given to scientists in university and institute, lowest one was given to food manufacturer. 2. Government regulation on the use of food additives was known to exist, but control of the uses of food additive was considered inadequate by 60% of the respondents. These results showed significant differences for age (p<0.05), for education level (p<.01) and for income (p<.05) respectively. 3. 47.9% of the respondents indicated that they were willing to purchase the additive free foods, although it was expensive. More than 70% made an effort to eat food with less food additive and were concerned about possible effects of food additives on health, showing significant differences for age (p<0.05), for education level (p<0.05) and for income (p<0.05). 4. Labeling for food additive found on food package was shown to be unsatisfactory, showing significant difference only for income (p<0.05) and more information about food was needed by over 91.3% of the respondents, showing significant difference for education level (p<0.05). 5. Although approximately 80% of the respondents were concerned about artificial preservative, artificial flavor, artificial color and artificial sweetener, the concern about artificial preservative was the highest. Primary causes that respondents felt fear toward food additives were the unknown harms and cancer, and primary sources that respondents got information on food were televison and radio, respectively. From these results, it was shown that consumer considered food safety important and they felt a great deal of concern about food additives.