Motives towards traceable food choice: a comparison between French and Italian consumers

Food traceability standards aim to reduce the risk of food-borne disease facilitating the withdrawal of products. Improved traceability is also predicted to reduce information asymmetry increasing food chain transparency, and to result in the development and maintenance of consumer trust in food system. Little is known about the consumer determinants of purchasing traceable food, and how these drivers vary between different countries and product type. This paper analyses consumers’ attitude and behaviour towards traceable food purchasing. This research aims to examine consumers’ perception of traceability in two EU countries: Italy and France. In addition, two different products were considered, chicken and honey, in order to evaluate the main drivers affecting intention to purchase and behaviour towards different traceable food products. A survey, preceded by a qualitative phase, has been conducted during November 2006 on two representative samples of Italian (n=500) and French (n=500) consumers, aiming at explaining traceable food purchase using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). TPB suggests that the likelihood of a particular behaviour can be predicted by individual’s intention to perform that behaviour, which in turn is determined by personal attitudes, subjective norms and perceptions of control. The relative importance of these factors has been evaluated, as well as the habit strength and consumers’ trust effects on intention. The collected data have been analysed with Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) technique which allows to test the relative importance of intention and behaviour determinants, as well as multi-group analysis to test the differences between countries and product types. The results suggest what are the relevant drivers of the intention to purchase traceable chicken and honey; this serves to design targeted public and private interventions. At the same time the multiple-group analysis helps to find differences in perceptions of consumers between countries and product types.