Chinese Consumers’ Trust in Food Safety Surveillance Sampling of Commonly Consumed Foods

Abstract

In China, food has become safer over the past five years, especially commonly consumed foods. Food supervision sampling has played an important role in improving food safety. However, consumer acceptance of the results of food safety supervision have not kept pace. Communicating actual food safety risks to consumers and improving the public trust in food safety supervision sampling inspection has become an important issue. This study focused on food safety surveillance sampling of commonly consumed foods. In total, 4408 adult consumers were surveyed between August and October 2021. Structural equation modeling was performed for data analysis. This study found significant differences along gender lines and across different cities and levels of education with respect to evaluating competence trust and care trust on food supervision sampling inspection. This study identified the public’s competence trust, care trust, and perception of food safety as factors that significantly affect one’s attitude toward supervision sampling inspection. Care trust showed a more pronounced effect on trust enhancement than competence trust. The present study also provides some practical measures for food safety supervisors to improve public trust in the national food inspection. Specifically, the sampling process should be open and transparent.