식품위험에 대한 소비자 인식과 위험수용도

Food Safety is a concept that should be acceptable to social community members considering their affordability and food knowledge. Consumers have to take a part for the social consultation, hence, it is important to understand how consumers perceive food risks and why they accept it or not. This study was conducted to understand consumers’ perceived risks and risk acceptance about 10 hazardous factors of food safety. In order to investigate food risks that consumers are anxious about, literature review and in-depth interviews were operated and 10 most anxious food risks were extracted. And consumers’s risk perception and risk acceptance level were measured by online survey. The level of risk perception on food risks was average 5.67 point out of 7, generally thinking every risks were hazardous. The most recognized risk was food radicidation, and the least one was MSG. The level of risk acceptance was not that low averaging 3.25 point out of 7, meaning that consumers could not completely avoid anxious food risks. The food risk accepted most was agricultural pesticides and the least one was mad cow disease. Consumer’s risk perception on food hazards had negative correlation with risk acceptance in general and the relationship was the strongest for food radicidation. Findings imply that government, retailor, and related business should communicate with consumers to reduce their anxiousness on food risks in a appropriate way considering their risk perception and food knowledge no matter what is the scientific truth.