Safe Food in Bangladesh: Perception and Influences on Safe Food Purchasing

Abstract

Unsafe food is a global concern as it causes significant health risks to a large number of people. It has many and varied short and long-term health impacts such as salmonellosis, shigellosis, typhoid fever and even cancer. Therefore, safe food is the central concern for all stakeholders in the food system from producers to the marketplace to the household where the food is finally consumed. As an end point of the food safety chain, consumers demonstrate various strategies to ensure safe food from purchasing to consumption. Consumers’ food purchasing behaviour is greatly influenced by culture, economy, psychology and lifestyle. Therefore, understanding consumer attitude towards safe food is an important aspect for ensuring safe food and reducing foodborne illnesses in a community. In developing countries like Bangladesh, food contamination and the food adulteration situation are widely known public health issues as well as concerns of growing importance in recent times. However, very little is known about consumer safe food purchasing behaviour in Bangladesh. Hence, this current research attempts to explore primary household food purchasers’ (PHFP) perception of safe food, their information sources of safe food knowledge and application of this knowledge when purchasing safe foods. To evaluate these, the current study applied a mixed method approach where quantitative surveys and qualitative focus group discussions were used as data collection methods. The findings of the study revealed that the primary household food purchaser (PHFP) was more concerned about the usage of chemicals in food and they reported considering chemical food hazards during food purchasing. Among other safe food purchasing factors freshness was found as one of the most important factors. Besides freshness, the PHFP considered appearance, taste, colour, seasonality, origin of the product and expiry date, as features to guide safe food purchasing. More than 50% of the PHFP reported that` safe food has not been diminished in the last five years in Bangladesh. Most of the PHFP relied on friends and family members as their information sources for safe food purchasing. Regardless of their perception, the PHFP showed much concern about safe food, hence, further planning and implementation of food safety related programs, as well as better education about safe food can help to mitigate these issues in this community. A number of recommendations were provided to inform future food safety related programs and additional research that aims to reduce foodborne illnesses in this community.