How food safety savvy are shoppers? Investigating and impacting consumers’ risk identification skills at retail

Authors: LEVINE, KATRINA - North Carolina State University; Luchansky, John; Porto-Fett, Anna; BRYANT, VERONICA - North Carolina Division Of Public Health; HERRING, CELIA - North Carolina State University; CHAPMAN, BENJAMIN - North Carolina State University

Submitted to: Food Protection Trends
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/22/2020
Publication Date: 12/30/2020
Citation: Levine, K., Luchansky, J.B., Porto Fett, A.C., Bryant, V., Herring, C., Chapman, B. 2020. How food safety savvy are shoppers? Investigating and impacting consumers’ risk identification skills at retail. Food Protection Trends. 41:21-35.

Interpretive Summary: The objective of the present study was to test the effectiveness of a series of short videos for improving food safety hazard identification by consumers while grocery shopping using a novel data collection method. In phase I, consumers (n=69) were recruited for one shopping session in October and one session November of 2017 in Wake County, North Carolina. During shopping at a grocery store, participants collected data, using a mobile electronic survey, based on their perceptions of what constituted a food safety hazard. Observations collected by a trained environmental health specialist were used as expert assessment. In phase II, a group of 30 participants selected from phase I (the intervention group), viewed five, two-minute videos about food safety hazard identification at retail prior to their second shopping session. After their second shopping session, the intervention group participated in focus groups to provide comments about their shopping experiences. The results showed that for the intervention group more hazards were identified in agreement with the expert assessment ca. 17% of the time (n=7) compared to ca. 12% of control participants (n=4). On average, participants were most likely to identify at least one expert-identified food safety hazard in the meat and poultry department (n=5 participants, 45%). Our results demonstrated that use of short videos about food safety hazard identification at retail may help consumers to improve their ability to identify potentially risky scenarios from a food safety perspective while grocery shopping.

Technical Abstract: Studies have shown that food safety hazards identified by experts at restaurants or food retailers are not consistent with consumer perceptions. However, there is a lack of information about evaluation methods for food safety communication to measure consumer perceptions of food safety hazards at retail stores in real time. Thus, the objective of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a series of short video for improving food safety hazard identification by consumers while grocery shopping using a novel ethnographic data collection approach. Also included in this approach were validity and reliability tests for the method. Participants (n=69) were recruited for two shopping sessions in October and November of 2017 in Wake County, North Carolina, where they collected citizen science-style data on their perceptions in one of three grocery stores using a mobile electronic survey. Observations conducted by a trained environmental health specialist were used as expert assessment. The intervention group (n=30) viewed a series of five, two-minute videos about retail food safety hazard identification prior to their second shopping session. They also participated in focus groups after their second shopping session to provide feedback about their experiences. A total of 66 participants completed both shopping sessions. Participants identified 67 total factors or scenarios they perceived as possibly contributing to or enhancing the likelihood of foodborne illness while shopping for the baseline sessions, with 40 being identified by the intervention group and the other 27 being identified by the control group. However, more hazards were identified as in agreement with the expert assessment ca. 17% of the time (n=7) for the intervention group, compared to ca. 12% of control participants (n=4). After the second shopping session on average, participants were most likely to identify at least one expert-identified hazard in the meat and poultry department (n=5 participants, 45%). Our results demonstrated that use of short videos about food safety hazard identification at retail may help consumers to improve their ability to identify potentially risky scenarios from a food safety perspective while grocery shopping.