Investigating Factors Affecting Consumers’ Satisfaction Towards Food Safety Products in East-West Economic Corridor: A Structural Equation Modelling

Abstract

Food and well-being are essential for people’s living, societies, and all nations. Most governments or related organizations have attempted to set up a certain standard in order to protect their people’s living. Since the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) has become borderless, a food safety issue has been a concern. According to some research, food consumers have not obtained criteria to assess by themselves whether the food is safe or at risk. This study aims to investigate consumers’ perceptions, attitudes, health expectations, and satisfaction towards food safety products in the current market situation. The objectives of this paper are 1) to assess the relationships between consumers’ perceptions and attitudes towards food safety products in East-West Economic Corridor (EWEC), 2) to investigate consumers’ knowledge of food safety market situation, and 3) to survey consumers’ satisfaction factors towards food safety products. SPSS and Structural Equation Model (SEM) were applied to analyze data from 430 respondents and for hypotheses testing. The results show that consumers around EWEC have been aware of the food safety products and knowledgeable about the food safety market situation. The consumers’ satisfaction factors are the safety implementation of all stakeholders and government policymakers. Non-government organizations (food producers, sellers, and marketers) should concern about the world food safety standard, quality, and value-adding. More importantly, the consumers’ confidence in food safety products in this particular area should be taken into account as well.