Extending the Application of Experimental Methods in Economic Analysis of Food-Safety Issues: A Pilot Study on the Impact of Supply Side Characteristics on Consumer Response to a Food Scare

Abstract

Political and business decision makers need to understand the determinants of consumer response to food safety incidents for designing communication strategies that deal adequately with consumer concerns. In this paper supplier differentiation with respect to reliability as a theoretically derived determinant is put to a first empirical test in an experimental study. The results indicate that the existence of such a differentiation leads to a more pronounced negative response. But the total effect is ambiguous, as an increasing discrepancy in the reliability of suppliers was found to reduce the intensity of consumer response, thus contradicting the theoretical predictions.