1. Determinants of Intention to
Purchase Chicken in Italy: The
Role of Consumer Risk Perception
and Trust in Different Information
Sources

2. • Aim
– Explain how purchasing intensions are influenced by
different levels of risk perception and trust in food safety
information
• Reason to choose chicken
– Widely consumed product
– Usually not associated with high risks
– Chicken consumption is not as sensitive as beef

3. • SN: how one should act in response to the views or
thoughts of others
• PCB: people’s confidence in their ability to perform
the behavior
• Theory of Planned Behavior
• Trust and knowledge
I
III
• I TRA
• II PCB
• III SPARTA

4. • No clear causal relationship between perceived risk and
attitudes towards buying chicken
• Risk perception is treated as a separate construct from other
outcome beliefs (Grunter and Frewer, 1998)
• Interpersonal trust
– perceived presence or absence of particular traits in the source
– Relationship between information source and target source
• Social trust
– feature of the multifaceted social processes underlying people’s
choices and the way individuals and organization are assigned
management responsibilities
– Willingness to rely on those who have responsibility for making
decisions
• Trust affects risk perceptions

5. • Specific trust
– Trust specifically related to a given referrant or to a given hazard
• General trust
– The belief that most people are trustworthy most of the time
• Social trust e.g. trust in food-chain actors and other policy
actors
• Interpersonal trust e.g. trust in information media

6. • Questionnaire
– Understanding food consumption habits
– Lifestyle patterns, trust towards several actors in the supply
chain, and risk perception for human health
– Socio-demographic information
• Validation of questionnaire through pilot study
• Final survey in Italy
– 580 face to face interviews
– Random location sampling
– Systematic sampling for respondent selection
•
•
•
•
Structural equation modelling
Maximum likelihood used to estimate the SEM parameters
Chi-square and root mean square error of approximation
RMSEA with threshold of 0.8 for success of fit

7. • Global attitude towards buying chicken for one’s own
household
–
–
–
–
–
Good-bad
Disagreeable-agreeable
Convenient-inconvenient
Ethical-unethical
Seven point scales
• Attitude beliefs
– Likert scale of 1 to 7
– Food Practices and value
•
•
•
•
Taste
Popularity within the household
Good value for money
Easy to combine all ingredients
– Ethical concerns
– Safety attributes
– convenience

8. • Risk Belief
1.
2.
3.
•
A list of morbidity factors risks associated with chicken, e.g.
Salmonella
Long term health risks due to eating chicken, e.g. cholesterol
The analysis shows that there are no clear division between short
and long term risks associated
Subjective norms
1. Responses were measured on a scale of 1-7 to get a single
factor, i.e. single item on expectation of approval
•
Intention to Purchase
1. Was measured on how likely a person is to buy fresh or frozen
chicken once in a week

9. • General Trust
–
–
–
–
‘‘If given a chance, most people would try to take advantage of you.’’
‘‘Most people are too busy looking out for themselves to be helpful.’’
You can’t trust strangers anymore.’’
‘‘I never rely on other people.’’
• Risk Knowledge
– Knowledge of risks that were associated with eating chicken
• Trust in food chain, policy factors and media
– Trust was elicited by asking them to chose between a set of options
which provides information about potential risks associated with
eating chicken

10. • Sample amounts to 580 individuals with equal amount of males and
females
• The results shows that on an average the respondents buy food for their
household’s consumption every week
• However they do not buy chicken every week
• On an average they buy I kg of chicken
• The favourite places for buy chicken are super markets and butchers
• Consumers believe that consumers have several good properties like it
tastes good
• They also believed that it is a healthy food with low cholesterol content
and fat
• Not easy to prepare
• It is dangerous for one’s health because of growth hormones present in
it and antibiotics used in breeding process

11. • Intention to purchase are significantly influenced by attitudes to
purchase and subjective norm
• Attitude is determined by the beliefs about the role of chicken in food
practices, risk perceptions, and to a lesser extent, by convenience
• So, the attitude to purchase becomes stronger if chicken is a appreciated
and popular product with convenience
• Perceived risk of health problem directly affects the buying intention
• The estimated regression coefficients suggest that knowledge of hazards
makes people more aware of the possible dangers and increases risk
perception
• Trust in media like internet and radio affects the risk perception

12. • Risk perception appears to be another important determinant of the
global attitude towards buying chicken, even in a day to day context
• Thus, factors affecting risk play a crucial, although indirect, role in
explaining attitudes and related behavioural intentions
• On the other hand, trust in information sources seem to play an
ambiguous role in Italy
• The results of this modelling exercise emphasizes that building a
reputation of trustworthiness is a prerequisite to spread confidence
among consumers
• Further research is needed on these issues to investigate how these
patterns of relationship are stable with respect to other behavioural
contexts or whether further causal paths should be added to the model
• Moreover, the relationship between trust in information sources and
trust in institutions should be further explored, possibly accounting for
other psychological, social, and cultural aspects