The Impact of Food Safety Awareness, Knowledge and Attitude on Consumer Safety Practices

Abstract

Food safety refers to controlling, preparing, and storing food to limit foodborne illness risk, and it's a global concern. Consumers sometimes buy foods from supermarkets without knowing the safety and quality of the food or mishandle food at home. However, consumers frequently lack understanding regarding food safety and risk-reducing practises and consumers are frequently the focus of interventions to address these gaps, but a global, comprehensive analysis of these initiatives by type, location, and outcome is currently lacking. This study aimed to study the relationship between food safety awareness, food safety knowledge and food safety attitude impacting food safety practices (KAP) among supermarket’s consumers in Klang Valley. This study had collected 401 respondents from Klang Valley area. Statistical Package Social Sciences Software (SPSS) and SmartPLS was used to analyse the data. Results of the study had shown that food safety awareness, food safety knowledge, food safety attitude have impact towards the food safety practices and it was found that food safety attitude is the mediator between food safety awareness and food safety knowledge towards the food safety practices. Results suggested that food safety is the responsibility of governments, food producers, food industrialists, and consumers. The government's responsibility in this regard is to implement effective, extensive, and systematic food control. The consumer is the final point of contact with food consequently, their awareness, knowledge, attitude, and practise of food safety play significant roles in outbreaks of foodborne diseases.