Information Cognition, Purchase Intention and Utility Evaluation: A Survey of the Consumers’Purchasing Decisions of Safe Food in Guangdong Province
YIN Shi-jiu1,2, WU Lin-hai2, XU Ying-jun1
(1.School of Economics, Qufu Normal University, Rizhao 276826, China; 2.Food Safety Research Base of Jiangsu Province, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China )
Abstract：
Safe food consumption is becoming a hot topic in the whole society because of the high frequency of food safety crisis. This study assesses the consumers’ cognition, purchase intention, utility evaluation of safe food based on the results of a survey. Through investigations in some cities such as Guangzhou, starting with the consumers’ cognition and utility evaluation, the authors uses Index on Integrative Evaluating for Purchase or Non-purchase Reason (IIE) to explore the consumers’ purchase intention and non-purchase intention, and then analyzs the consumer’s utility evaluation of organic food, green food and conventional food. It reveales that the consumers’ cognitive of safe food is generally low, characteristics such as “safety” and “environmental conservation” are still their most important purchase intention, and the key reasons that prevent the consumers from buying are the high price and the lack of trust. In conclusion the current utility evaluation of organic food is well below green food and regular food. Policy implications of the conclusions of this paper mainly lie in two levels: at the policy level, the government should strengthen the supervision and publicity; at the corporate level, marketing strategies such as targeted pricing policies should be developed to increase market demand.
YIN Shi-jiu, WU Lin-hai, XU Ying-jun.Information Cognition, Purchase Intention and Utility Evaluation: A Survey of the Consumers’Purchasing Decisions of Safe Food in Guangdong Province[J] Economic Survey, 2014,V31(3): 102-107
2014 
