Trust as a Determinant of Consumer Behaviour in Food Safety Crises

Based on an enhancement of Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behaviour, this article investigates German consumers' trust in different sources of information. Moreover, it discusses the settings and the extent to which consumers' trust influences consumers' behaviour both in the case of a standard purchasing situation and in the environment of a hypothetical food safety incidence such as bird flu . Results indicate that both the consumers' attitude and their trust in suppliers of information is a crucial factor determining their behaviour under uncertainty.consumer behaviour, uncertainty, trust, food safety, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Milk Handling in the Supply Chains: The Case of Smallholder Retail Outlets In Nakuru, Kenya

This paper characterises smallholder milk outlets in Nakuru district one of the major milk producing Districts in Kenya, and also analyses factors that influence their current operating and handling capacities. Data comes from four divisions of the district. A sample of 137 smallholder milk retail outlets was made using systematic random sampling methodology. Both descriptive and ordinary regression methods were used in the analysis. A characterisation of the retail outlets is brought out and the factors that affect their current operating capacities presented. Results show that a unit change in education, experience and selling prices leads to 0.29, 0.18 and 0.23 significant changes in milk handling capacities by the retail outlets respectively. These imply that there is an efficiency gain from education and better prices through higher consumer incomes in the industry. Enhancement of milk retailers' value addition through provision of physical facilities such as cooling equipment and stability in prices should be encouraged through policy intervention to promote informal sector investments in the sub-sector.milk supply chain, smallholder retail outlets, Kenya, Industrial Organization, Marketing,

Trust as a Determinant of Consumer Behaviour in Food Safety Crises

Based on an enhancement of Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behaviour, this article investigates German consumers' trust in different sources of information. Moreover, it discusses the settings and the extent to which consumers' trust influences consumers' behaviour both in the case of a standard purchasing situation and in the environment of a hypothetical food safety incidence such as bird flu . Results indicate that both the consumers' attitude and their trust in suppliers of information is a crucial factor determining their behaviour under uncertainty

Food Risk Communication and Consumers' Trust in the Food Supply Chain

Our motivation is lying on the questions "How does a food scare and information of a food scare influence the buying decision of one single agent and the changes in the aggregate demand?" and "How can we evaluate effective risk communication strategies?". Since we investigate a society of consumers which do have their own decision functions, we can observe how new information could influence the behaviour of each consumer and more interesting the aggregate changes in the demand by creating a population of agents. This multi agent simulation can be used to investigate how different information releases and decision functions influence the aggregate demand. The agents get information from the networks in which they are present. Then this information will be processed, the trust regarding the food item under investigation will be updated and taken into account for the own decision. Our intention is to measure how different risk communication strategies influence the aggregate demand. For this purpose we use a multi agent method in order to follow a bottom up approach where each agent acts individually. The interaction between the agents leads to an emergence of an aggregate demand that comes from the bottom up. Each agent follows its internal updating and decision algorithms so that on the aggregate level the demand changes according to the outcomes of the interaction and its related updating processes. After the communication phases the aggregation of the outcomes of each agent shows the result of the information strategy that was selected. In this way we can test and investigate different risk communication strategies and evaluate these information policies, i.e. the benefits of a risk communication strategy can be evaluated with this multi agent approach

Milk Handling in the Supply Chains: The Case of Smallholder Retail Outlets In Nakuru, Kenya

This paper characterises smallholder milk outlets in Nakuru district one of the major milk producing Districts in Kenya, and also analyses factors that influence their current operating and handling capacities. Data comes from four divisions of the district. A sample of 137 smallholder milk retail outlets was made using systematic random sampling methodology. Both descriptive and ordinary regression methods were used in the analysis. A characterisation of the retail outlets is brought out and the factors that affect their current operating capacities presented. Results show that a unit change in education, experience and selling prices leads to 0.29, 0.18 and 0.23 significant changes in milk handling capacities by the retail outlets respectively. These imply that there is an efficiency gain from education and better prices through higher consumer incomes in the industry. Enhancement of milk retailers' value addition through provision of physical facilities such as cooling equipment and stability in prices should be encouraged through policy intervention to promote informal sector investments in the sub-sector