PERCEPTION OF IRRADIATED FOODS AMONG STUDENTS (SECONDARY, UNIVERSITY [FOOD SCIENCE AND NONFOOD SCIENCE]) AND ADULTS IN ARGENTINA

PERCEPTION OF IRRADIATED FOODS AMONG STUDENTS(SECONDARY, UNIVERSITY [FOOD SCIENCE AND NONFOOD

SCIENCE]) AND ADULTS IN ARGENTINA

ALEJANDRA FLORES1,* and GUILLERMO HOUGH*

Instituto Superior Experimental de Tecnología Alimentaria(6500) Nueve de Julio, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Accepted for Publication December 6, 2007

ABSTRACT

A survey on beliefs and purchase intent of irradiated foods was conductedamong 300 Argentine students, covering secondary/high school, food scienceand nonfood science university, and 100 nonstudent adults. Other factorsconsidered were the type of information provided (introductory, processdescription and benefits) and the city of residence (small agricultural city andbig city). The most important benefits were considered to be microorganismreduction and improved sanitation. On the other hand, insecurity and doubtswere the main reasons why respondents would not buy these foods. Only 14%said they would definitely buy irradiated foods. Considering their doubts andinsecurities, it is probable that if these respondents see a food labeled as“irradiated,” they would not choose to buy it. Within developing countriessuch as Argentina, the promotion of this technology by government agencieswould be very costly, and at present, these costs would not seem to be justified.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

The negative perceptions of consumers would hinder the successfulimplementation of food irradiation. The doubts or insecurities that consumersof developing countries have are similar to those that consumers of developedcountries have. Most respondents answered that irradiated foods should belabeled as such. If food irradiation was to be pursued further, the place to startwould be in food science curricula as this is the basis of future professionals incharge of researching its use and/or implementing the process.

* The authors are research fellows of the Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas de la Provincia deBuenos Aires.

1 Corresponding author. TEL/FAX: 54 2317 431309; EMAIL: [email protected]

Journal of Food Processing and Preservation 32 (2008) 361–377. All Rights Reserved.No claim to original worksJournal compilation © 2008, Blackwell Publishing

361

mailto:[email protected]

INTRODUCTION

In many countries, the introduction of new food technologies like foodirradiation has been accompanied by debates regarding food safety and envi-ronmental issues (Fox 2002). Irradiated foods are not accepted by manyconsumers, mainly because of their previous ideas on the concept of irradia-tion and also because of nongovernmental groups campaigning about possiblerisks.

Once the economical and food safety issues have been satisfied, thesuccess or failure of irradiated foods depends on consumer acceptability.Consumer perception toward these foods has been measured in several coun-tries. In the U.S.A., since irradiated foods were approved in the 1960s, surveyshave been conducted to measure understanding and acceptability toward thisprocess (IFIC 1999). Fox (2002) examined the effects of different food irra-diation descriptions on willingness-to-pay for a sandwich made with irradiatedpork; he found that the positive and negative descriptions alone had theanticipated effects, but when combined, the effect of negative informationdominated the positive information, and willingness-to-pay values decreased.Nayga et al. (2004) found that information on the nature, benefits and irradia-tion processes contributed positively to willingness-to-buy ratings. Frenzenet al. (2001) studied the influence of respondents’ characteristics onwillingness-to-buy irradiated meat; they found that educated-high-incomemales were more willing to buy these products. Hashim et al. (1996) andResurrección and Galvez (1999) performed focus group studies on consumerperceptions and attitudes toward irradiated poultry and beef, respectively; theirresults show that consumers are more likely to purchase irradiated meat afterbeing informed of irradiation’s safety and benefits. In Argentina, the onlypublished research (Urioste et al. 1990) refers to a study performed in 1986,where purchase intent (PI) for irradiated onions was measured after a mediacampaign in the surveyed town and after the respondents read a poster detail-ing irradiation benefits. After all this positive information, the PI for the onionswas high.

Argentina produces cobalt-60 sources; it has an institute (ComisiónNacional de Energía Atómica, Buenos Aires, Argentina) that performsresearch on food irradiation and a private company (Ionics Inc., Talar dePacheco, Buenos Aires) that irradiates spices, dehydrated vegetables and herbswith a limited capacity. Argentine legislation authorizes food irradiation afterthe presentation of a detailed protocol. To date, the foods that have beenapproved for irradiation treatment are dehydrated vegetables, spices, onions,mushrooms, asparagus, garlic, potatoes and strawberries (CAA 2005). Foodscontaining less than 10% irradiated components do not have to state it on thelabel, and these are the foods that are using irradiated components, mainly

362 A. FLORES and G. HOUGH

spices and dehydrated vegetables. Other foods with more than 10% irradiatedcomponents are not being commercialized. The reasons for this are economi-cal; and also because they would have to be labeled as “irradiated,” foodprocessors fear this would lead to rejection. Knowledge of how the populationperceives this technology is important in implementing the adequate messageto avoid consumer rejection. Studies on food irradiation perceptions havebeen performed in developed countries; there are no published studies onhow populations from developing countries, like Argentina, perceive thisprocess.

Published studies in developed countries have been on adult population.Secondary and university students are an important population segment toconsider when measuring the perception of food processing technologies, as itis at this age when their beliefs and attitudes take shape. It is also at this agewhen they start choosing their own foods, especially outside their homes, andthus, their opinions should be considered. It could be hypothesized that sec-ondary adolescent students would be more receptive to new technologies andless worried about their possible risks than university students. It could also behypothesized that a person will choose a food science major because he/shefinds fields, such as the following, attractive: chemistry, physical transforma-tions, industrial engineering, nutrition or biology. Being attracted to thesedisciplines can also influence their attitude toward innovative food processessuch as irradiation. Food science students are of interest, but nonfood scienceuniversity students are a necessary contrast. Irradiation surveys of generalpopulations in Argentina and comparable countries are few and outdated(Urioste et al. 1990), thus, it was necessary to complete the student populationwith nonstudent adults.

Mucci and Hough (2003) found that Argentine consumers with a highereducational level who had heard about genetically modified foods were gen-erally less willing to buy these foods. It would be of interest to test thishypothesis regarding irradiated foods. One group of consumers who can beconsidered to be informed on food irradiation is students of food sciencecareers.

Another issue of interest was to investigate if people from different citieshave different perceptions toward irradiated foods. In Argentina, inhabitants ofsmall cities in agricultural settings have a closer contact with nature, and mostof their meat and vegetables come from close by. It can be hypothesizedthat these people would consider food irradiation as unnecessary or notnatural, compared to the inhabitants of big cities away from agriculturalsurroundings.

The main objectives of the present work were to analyze the followingfactors on PI of irradiated foods by Argentine consumers: (a) type of informa-tion provided (introductory, process description and benefits); (b) educational

363PERCEPTION OF IRRADIATED FOODS

status of respondents (secondary, nonfood science university students, foodscience university students, and nonstudent adults with secondary education atmost); and (c) city of residence (small agricultural city and big city).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Questionnaire

In the first part, respondents were asked demographic questions on age,gender, educational level and household monthly income. Second, theyanswered if and how they had heard about food irradiation, and if they hadheard about it, how much they considered they knew about the method. Thesequestions were asked previous to giving them information about food irradia-tion processes.

PI of foods treated with ionizing radiation was measured with a 0 (notat all interested) to 10 (very interested) structured scale. This scale was usedafter the respondents read each one of the sets of information in Table 1.Information 1 was introductory, information 2 was descriptive of the process,and information 3 was about the benefits of irradiation. The order in whichthey were presented was the same for all respondents. The three levels ofinformation given to the respondents were designed to be complementary,starting with an introduction, followed by a process description, and endingwith a statement of benefits. Thus, when stating the effect of the second

TABLE 1.TYPE OF INFORMATION GIVEN TO DETERMINE THE EFFECT OF

INFORMATION ON PURCHASE INTENT

Information 1(introductory)

“Both insects as microorganisms cause food deterioration or sickness.Food irradiation is a method used for the control of these insects andmicroorganisms. It is possible to apply it in foods like fruits, vegetables,cereals and meats. It has been applied in some countries for more than20 years.”

Information 2(processdescription)

“Irradiation is used instead of heat or chemical substances, and it consistsof treating the product with ionizing radiations for a certain time. Irradiationcan be done with cobalt-60 or cesium-137, X-rays or electron accelerators.”

Information 3(benefits)

– Irradiation can be applied to raw products (meats, fruits and vegetables)that cannot be heat treated. Through irradiation, these products keep fresh.

– It is an alternative to the use of chemical substances of suspectedtoxicity used for fumigation (methyl bromide), as conservatives (sodiumnitrite in meats) and germination inhibitors (maleic hydrazide).

– It can be used to eliminate parasites in pork meat, thus avoiding thetransmission of the harmful trichinosis disease in humans.


level, we are in fact including the effect of the second and the first level.When analyzing the effect of the third level, we are including all levels ofinformation, i.e., how a person would react having relatively complete infor-mation on the irradiation process. Information 1 could have a neutral effecton the respondents as it is a definition of this technology. Information 2,which indicates how foods are irradiated, could cause a negative effect asionizing sources are mentioned (Cobalt-60, Cesium-137 X-Rays). Thesesources would either be unknown to the respondents or would have danger-ous connotations. Information 3 would be positive as it indicates the ben-eficial effects of this technology.

After measuring PI, the respondents answered questions related tobeliefs, which are detailed in Table 2. The complete survey is available fromthe authors on request.

A possibility would have been to ask the respondents about their beliefsprevious to receiving information on irradiation, thus to have a baseline for thestudy. We thought that irradiation would not be known previously to mostrespondents, and this was confirmed in our survey as shown in Table 2. Thus,it did not seem reasonable to ask the respondents about their beliefs onirradiation previous to giving them some information.

Participants and Survey Implementation

Four hundred respondents distributed as shown in Table 2 completed thequestionnaire during the months of August and September 2005 in the cities ofNueve de Julio and Buenos Aires. Nueve de Julio is a city with approximately40,000 inhabitants, 260 km from Buenos Aires, surrounded by rich agricul-tural land. Buenos Aires is Argentine’s capital city and has nearly 3 millioninhabitants. In both cities, the ethnic background of the population is whiteCaucasian. Other researchers have used similar number of respondents (Bocal-letti and Moro 2000; Burton et al. 2001; Heffernan and Hillers 2002).

Secondary students’ recruitment was conducted in schools from bothcities. In each city, large public-funded secondary schools were chosen whereaccess was possible. The schools had 1,500 and 800 students in Buenos Airesand Nueve de Julio, respectively. In each school, 50 students were chosen atrandom. The students answered the survey in the computer classrooms.Response rate was practically 100% as all interviewed students were willing torespond.

Food science students were recruited in universities from both cities. Asthis was a study on particular segments of the population like food sciencestudents, a completely random sampling method of respondents would nothave been possible. For example, the Nueve de Julio food science students areno more than 60, so choosing 50 was practically the whole population. The


TABLE 2.SURVEYED POPULATION, RESIDUAL MAXIMUM LIKELIHOOD TECHNIQUE ADJUSTED

MEAN PURCHASE INTENT (PI) (ON A 0–10 SCALE) AND PERCENT RESPONDENTS INEACH CATEGORY CORRESPONDING TO GENDER, PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE AND

BELIEFS ABOUT FOOD IRRADIATION

Educational status PI(% respondents)

Secondarystudents(%)

Foodscienceuniversitystudents(%)†

Nonfoodscienceuniversitystudents(%)†

Nonstudentadults(%)

Surveyed population*Female 54 71 57 79 6.0 (65)Male 46 29 43 21 6.3 (35)Average age 15 20 22 49 –

Knowledge about food irradiationYes 6 71 22 16 6.2 (29)No 77 28 73 68 6.1 (61)I do not know/I am not sure 17 1 5 16 6.2 (10)

Level of knowledge about food irradiation‡A little 63 38 85 63 – (62)Neither little nor a lot 37 54 11 37 – (35)A lot 0 8 4 0 – (3)

Which is the most important benefit of food irradiation?Eliminates or reduces the

number of dangerousmicroorganisms that causesickness

86 54 63 64 – (67)§

Controls insects (such as theMediterranean fly) in fruits,vegetables and cereals

1 4 2 1 – (2)

Prolongs commercializationtime of products to reachinternal and distant externalmarkets

0 4 5 0 – (2)

Improves the sanitary qualityof foods to thus reach moredemanding markets

12 38 29 31 – (27)§

None 1 0 1 4 – (2)Reasons for not consuming irradiated foods

The irradiation processdisguises low qualityproducts

4 12 4 7 5.9 (7)

I feel insecure eating irradiatedfoods

24 17 22 32 4.6 (24)

The irradiation process isharmful to the environment

6 2 3 2 – (3)

The irradiation process isharmful to the people whowork in irradiation plants

2 4 0 3 – (2)

They are more expensive thansimilar nonirradiated foods

0 4 3 0 – (2)


students answered the survey in the computer classrooms. Response rate waspractically 100% as all interviewed students were willing to respond. InBuenos Aires, there are 4–5 universities that have a food science degree. Wechose two of these universities where access was possible; emails of willingparticipants were collected, and they received an invitation to log on to thesurvey through a link; 63 surveys were completed of which 50 were chosen atrandom.

TABLE 2. CONTINUED

Educational status PI(% respondents)

Secondarystudents(%)

Foodscienceuniversitystudents(%)†

Nonfoodscienceuniversitystudents(%)†

Nonstudentadults(%)

It is not yet known if they door do not cause humanhealth problems

41 41 42 30 6.0 (39)

Irradiation is unnecessary 3 0 1 4 – (2)I do not know 5 8 9 0 7.1 (6)Yes, I would buy irradiated

foods12 11 14 21 7.2 (15)

Other reasons 3 1 2 1 – (2)Do you consider that irradiated foods are radioactive?

Yes 18 7 15 17 6.0 (14)No 19 33 17 23 5.9 (23)I do not know/I am not sure 63 60 68 60 6.6 (63)

Do you consider that food irradiation produces unacceptable nutrient losses?Yes 17 9 10 19 5.4 (14)No 30 56 27 19 6.8 (33)I do not know/I am not sure 53 35 63 62 6.3 (53)

Do you consider that pregnant women and children can consume irradiated foods?Yes 21 36 24 17 6.9 (25)No 39 20 23 22 5.8 (26)I do not know/I am not sure 40 44 53 61 5.8 (49)

Do you consider that food irradiation produces changes in flavor, appearance or texture?Yes 23 12 14 19 6.2 (17)No 38 50 34 19 6.1 (35)I do not know/I am not sure 39 38 52 62 6.1 (48)

In Argentina should irradiated foods be labeled as such?Yes 95 90 90 94 – (92)¶No 1 4 2 0 – (2)I do not know/I am not sure 4 6 8 6 – (6)

Numbers in bold signify statistical significance at the 5% level.* For each category: 50 from Nueve de Julio and 50 from Buenos Aires.† Having completed their first year (freshmen) at a university.‡ Calculated over those who answered “yes” to the previous question.§ PI was not included as most respondents chose these two options, which had a similar meaning.¶ PI not included as most respondents chose one option.


In Buenos Aires, nonfood science university students were recruited incybercafes neighboring university buildings, and they completed the surveythrough the Internet. In Nueve de Julio, nonfood science university studentsfrom three small universities were invited to complete the survey through theInternet. Nonfood science university students were from the following careers:law, accountancy, psychology, nursing, system analysis and pedagogy. In bothcities, the response rate was approximately 70%.

University students (food science and nonfood science) at the end of theirfirst year (freshmen) or over were chosen.

In Buenos Aires, nonstudent adults were recruited as they walked down apavement, and were invited to complete the survey in a central location. InNueve de Julio, nonstudent adults were recruited at random through the tele-phone directory, and were invited to complete the survey in a central location.Approximately 60% of interviewed nonstudent adults were willing to com-plete the survey.

In most surveys, an effort is made to have a representative sample so thatresults can be extended to a larger population. In the present survey, we canconsider that secondary students, nonfood science university students andnonstudents were well represented, and thus, their results could be extended tothis type of population in Argentina. As regards the food science universitystudents, the sample was limited to three universities. It is probable that afourth university would have a particularly zealous professor on the theme offood irradiation, and thus, the students would have different knowledge andbeliefs on this technology. We did sample three universities, but we recognizethat the food science university students may not be representative of thewhole university of this target population in Argentina.

Statistical Analysis

PI was the response variable, and the explanatory design variables werethe following (see Table 3): type of information, educational status and city ofresidence. In the analysis of variance (ANOVA) model, the respondents wereconsidered a random variable, and were nested within educational status andcity of residence.

Gender, previous knowledge and beliefs (factors from Table 2) could notbe considered as true independent variables influencing PI because they werenot design variables, rather their response frequency resulted from the survey,which led them to being unbalanced. Residual maximum likelihood technique(REML) is a computationally intensive ANOVA technique particularly wellsuited to the analysis of unbalanced data (Horgan and Hunter 1993), and wasused to analyze the effect of these variables on PI. Factors related to the mostimportant benefits of irradiated foods and if they should be labeled as such


were not analyzed by REML, as responses to these questions fell basically intoone option (Table 2). Thus, the fixed effects were gender, previous knowledgeand beliefs. A random effect was the consumers were nested within gender. In“reasons for not consuming irradiated foods,” options with fewer than 5%answers were not considered (Table 2). Also, two-way interactions were notconsidered, as some factor combinations had no answers.

In all ANOVAs, means were compared using Fisher’s least significancedifference at a 5% significance level. Genstat 8th Edition statistical package(VSN International Ltd., Hemel Hempstead, U.K.) was used for calculations.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Demographic Data

The respondents’ average age and gender are listed in Table 2. Age wasas expected. A majority of respondents were women; this was because foodscience university students in both cities and nonfood science university stu-dents in the small city were mostly women. As this was the case, whenrecruiting nonstudent adults, no special effort was made to balance the gender,and women were more easily recruited.

As regards the stated home income, a third of the secondary students saidthey did not know what it amounted to, which is reasonable. Over 60% of

TABLE 3.AVERAGE PI ON A 0–10 SCALE FOR THE MAIN EFFECTS OF THE DESIGN FACTORS

Factors Levels PI

Mean

Source of supplied information Introductory 6.2Process description 5.3Benefits 6.8

LSD* = 0.2

Educational status Secondary student 6.0Food science university student 6.6Nonfood science university student 6.4Nonstudent adult 5.6

LSD = 0.7

Residence city Nueve de Julio 6.4Buenos Aires 5.9

LSD = 0.5

* Fisher’s LSD (P < 0.05).PI, purchase intent; LSD, least significance difference.


nonsecondary student respondents reported low middle-class incomes. InArgentina, people report incomes below their true value, so it can be supposedthat generally, the respondents were middle class.

As expected, the students’ educational levels responded to their educa-tional status. Nonstudent adults were distributed as follows: primary, 18%;secondary, 71%; and university, 11%.

Previous Knowledge

Residents from both cities had similarity in their answers. The lack ofnational campaigns informing on food irradiation explains this. These ques-tions were answered before having received any information, and there wereclear differences between respondent segments.

Twenty-nine percent of respondents had heard or read about irradiation asa method of food preservation. As expected, the majority of these respondentswere food science university students (Table 2). Of these, only 8.5% declaredthey knew a lot about food irradiation. Not considering food science students,only 15% of respondents had read or heard about food irradiation. In Argen-tina, there are no campaigns explaining the process, and its application islimited to foods containing less than 10% of irradiated components, which arenot labeled as “irradiated.” Thus, there are few opportunities for the generalpopulation to come into contact with this technology.

Frenzen et al. (2001) reported that 48% of respondents in the U.S.A. hadheard or read about irradiated food. Since 2001, various retail stores in theU.S.A. have been exhibiting irradiated meat, which would explain this rela-tively high percentage of respondents being aware of this process. Hashimet al. (1996) indicated that respondents in the U.S.A. may be aware of theexistence of the process, but they knew few details about it. This coincideswith the level of knowledge on irradiation shown in Table 2.

Beliefs

The belief questions were answered after all respondents had receivedinformation on food irradiation. If these questions had been answered beforethe respondents received the information, very little would have been obtainedas a majority of them had never heard about the process.

Response patterns of beliefs were similar across cities; the fact that inboth cities the exposure to nationwide media was similar explained this simi-larity in response. Only the belief about radioactivity was significant betweencities when applying a chi-square contingency table test. Many respondentsfrom the small city were not sure if irradiated foods were radioactive. Respon-dents from the big city were less insecure, and they more often chose theoption that irradiated foods were not radioactive.


The most important benefits chosen by the respondents were “eliminatesor reduces the number of dangerous microorganisms . . .” and “improves thesanitary quality of foods . . .”, thus allowing them to reach demanding markets(Table 2). Both these benefits aim in the same direction. Few secondary stu-dents chose “improves the sanitary quality of foods . . .”, showing that thisconcept had little practical meaning to them. Very few respondents choseinsect control or shelf life extension as important irradiation benefits. This haspolicy implications: promoting this technology based on these benefits wouldhave little impact. Hashim et al. (1996) and Fox (2002) found that U.S.respondents also considered bacteria reduction as the major benefit of irradia-tion. Table 2 shows that only two respondents said that food irradiation has nobenefits. This is reasonable considering that they had just received the infor-mation shown in Table 1.

Regarding the reasons why they would not consume irradiated foods, thehighest percentages (Table 2) were for “it is not yet known if they do or do notcause human health problems” and “I feel insecure eating irradiated foods.”Between them, they accounted for 63% of the answers, with little differenceover student status. This sense of doubt and insecurity would have to beovercome to increase the number of consumers who would definitely buyirradiated food; only 14% of respondents in the present survey. This percent-age was slightly higher (21%) for nonstudent adults. Respondents recognizethe benefits in the method as shown in the previous question, but their doubtsand insecurity prevent them from wanting to buy irradiated foods. Thisincludes food science students from whom a more positive attitude would beexpected.

When asked if they considered whether irradiation induced radioactivityin the food, the majority of respondents (Table 2: 63%) answered that they didnot know or were not sure. As expected, a higher percentage of food sciencestudents answered that it did not induce radioactivity, but a majority of thesestudents were not sure. Either the process was incompletely covered in theircurricula or their ingrained insecurity about irradiation was not overcome bywhat they were taught. In a focus group study, Resurrección and Galvez (1999)found that participants believed that irradiated foods kept the radioactivity, andthemselves became radioactive.

Regarding nutrient loss, consumption by pregnant women or small chil-dren, and sensory changes, the distribution of answers according to educa-tional status was significant, applying chi-square tests. Overall, the “I do notknow/I am not sure” answer had the highest number of responses. Nonstudentadults were the most doubtful, followed by nonfood science university stu-dents; their lack of information shown at the beginning of the survey wouldexplain this. Also, the information provided during the survey (Table 1) did notaddress these issues. Secondary school students were not so doubtful and


tended to consider irradiation as more harmful than the other respondentgroups. In general, food science students consider these foods as less harmfulthan the other respondent groups, although a high percentage of them weredoubtful.

Ninety-two percent of respondents answered that irradiated foods shouldbe labeled as such. Considering the doubts and insecurities shown in theprevious questions, it is probable that if these respondents see a food labeledas “irradiated,” they would not choose to buy it. Other publications (Fox 2002)have discussed labeling alternatives, but none doubt that consumers find itnecessary.

PI

Table 3 shows how the main effects of each factor influenced stated PI.Stated PI in the context of a survey does not necessarily reflect future behaviorconcerning the actual consumption of irradiated food.

The two-way “type of information ¥ city of residence” and “type ofinformation ¥ educational status” interactions were significant (Figs. 1 and 2,respectively). The three-way interaction was not considered, as conclusionsbased on them would not be reliable because of the sample size being too smallin each particular comparison.

Different types of information had a significant effect on PI. Informa-tion 1 (introductory) led to a mean PI of 6.2, which was reduced to 5.3 after

0

2

4

6

8

10

introductory process benefits

Pu

rch

ase

inte

nt

Buenos Aires

Nueve de Julio

FIG. 1. THE TWO-WAY “TYPE OF INFORMATION ¥ CITY OF RESIDENCE” INTERACTION


the respondents read information 2 (process description). The latter infor-mation had terms like “cobalt-60” and “X-rays,” which made the respon-dents feel insecure about buying these foods. Figure 2 shows that nonstudentadults reacted most negatively to this type of information. Resurrección andGalvez (1999) found that focus group participants in the U.S.A. showed anegative perception toward irradiation sources. After reading information 3(benefits), PI went up to 6.8 on average; relative increase was highest forfood science students (Fig. 2). These values were most probably a result ofthe respondents feeling induced to increase their PI because of the positiveinformation they were receiving. As shown in the previous section, thebeliefs about this methodology would not support this relatively high PI. Asingle answer after reading a text of information would not be sufficient inpredicting the actual behavior. Shogren et al. (1999) found that at equalprice between nonirradiated and irradiated chicken meat, there werehigher levels of acceptability for irradiated chicken meat in an experimentalauction market and in a hypothetical market survey than were shownin a more realistic retail trial. Beliefs were more important than manifestedPI.

University students had higher PI, followed by secondary students andnonstudent adults. It was hypothesized in the introduction that the adolescentsecondary students would be less worried about the possible risks of processes

0

2

4

6

8

10

introductory process benefits

Pu

rch

ase

inte

nt

Secondary

Food science

Nonfood science

Nonstudents adults

FIG. 2. THE TWO-WAY “TYPE OF INFORMATION ¥ EDUCATIONAL STATUS”INTERACTION


like irradiation, and thus have higher PI scores. This was not the case. Theirbeliefs, analyzed in the previous section, were in some cases more negativethan the other groups. The nonstudent adult respondents were the most doubt-ful when expressing their beliefs, and this was reflected in their lower PI.

On average, food science university students had similar PI than nonfoodscience university students. The PI averages for both these groups, 6.6 and 6.4,were made up by the following distribution of respondents’ scores: approxi-mately 30% between 0 and 5, 50% between 6 and 8, and 20% between 9 and10. Thus, there are low, intermediate and high PI values in both student groups.On intercepting a university student in Argentina, his/her status as food scienceor nonfood science would be a poor predictor regarding their PI of irradiatedfoods. Although nonfood science university students had not heard about foodirradiation previous to the survey, this did not affect their PI. Universitystudents, whether studying food science or nonfood science, considered pro-vided information more positively than secondary students and nonstudentadults.

The hypothesis that residents of a small agricultural city would considerirradiation as unnecessary and not natural, and thus have lower PI scores thanresidents of a big city, was not shown to be true. On average, the respondentsfrom Buenos Aires had a lower PI than the respondents from Nueve de Julio(Table 3). Figure 1 shows that the difference between cities depended on thetype of information. Both responded negatively to the process information,while the small city respondents expressed a higher PI for the introductory andbenefit information. Our research institute is well known and relatively pres-tigious in Nueve de Julio. The respondents knew our institute was conductingthe survey and thus the positive information on food irradiation was taken atface value, and the PI ratings were higher than for Buenos Aires respondentswho had no knowledge of our institute.

The results of how beliefs influenced PI are in Table 2; this table presentsREML-adjusted means, which consider the unbalanced nature of the data(Horgan and Hunter 1993). The factors related to the most important benefitsof irradiated foods and if they should be labeled as such were not analyzed byREML, as responses to these questions fell basically into one option (Table 2).Categories with very few respondents in reasons not to buy irradiated foods(Table 2) were not considered in the analysis.

Gender affected PI, although the magnitude of the difference was small.In a previous study, Fox (2002) reported that gender had no effect.

Knowledge about food irradiation did not affect PI. Respondents withprevious knowledge of irradiated foods did not have higher PI than the rest ofthe respondents. Frenzen et al. (2001) in their study on irradiated meat foundthat U.S. respondents who had heard about irradiated foods were more willingto buy them. In this study, the previous knowledge did not affect the purchase


intention because the participants mentioned they knew very little of foodirradiation.

Regarding the reasons why not to buy irradiated foods, the lowest PI wasfor the respondents who said they would feel insecure consuming these foods.The PI for “it is not yet known if they do or do not cause human healthproblems,” also implying insecurity, was higher. This shows that the wordingin surveys of sensitive issues like food irradiation is important in how respon-dents answer. As expected, the highest PI was for the respondents who couldnot find a reason not to buy irradiated foods and for those who would buy thesefoods.

The beliefs sensory changes and radioactivity induction did not have aneffect on PI. As expected, the respondents who considered irradiated foods tohave negative effects (not appropriate for small children and pregnant women,alters nutritional properties) had the lowest PI, followed closely by the respon-dents who did not know or were not sure. This would indicate that uncertaintyis closer to a negative evaluation than a positive one.

CONCLUSIONS

The survey data showed that consumers’ initial knowledge aboutfood irradiation was very limited. A third of the respondents had heardabout irradiated foods; most of these were food science university students.However, this did not lead this group to have a higher PI than nonfoodscience university students after they had all received the information on foodirradiation.

The most important benefits were considered to be microorganism reduc-tion and improved sanitation. On the other hand, insecurity and doubts werethe main reasons why respondents would not buy these foods. When asked ifthey thought irradiated foods were radioactive, were not fit for vulnerableconsumers, or had lower nutrient or sensory properties, most answers fell inthe category of “I do not know/I am not sure,” which also showed up doubtsabout this methodology. Only 14% said they would definitely buy irradiatedfoods. Additionally, insect control or shelf life extension was not consideredimportant irradiation benefits; promoting this technology based on these ben-efits would have little impact.

Most respondents (92%) answered that irradiated foods should be labeledas such. In Argentina, food regulations state that if a food contains more than10% of irradiated components, they should be labeled “food treated withionizing energy” (CAA 2005). Considering the respondents’ doubts and inse-curities, it is probable that if these respondents see a food labeled as “treatedwith ionizing energy,” they would not choose to buy it.


After reading the information on the benefits of irradiation, the average PIwas 7.0 on a 0–10 scale. Manifested beliefs about this methodology and only14% who said they would definitely buy irradiated foods would not supportthis relatively high PI. A single score after reading a text of information wouldnot be sufficient in predicting the actual behavior.

Food science university students had relatively high PI and were thegroup with the most positive beliefs concerning irradiated foods. However, ahigh proportion of them were doubtful in answering questions such as “Do youconsider that irradiated foods are radioactive?” or “Do you consider thatpregnant women and children can consume irradiated foods?,” and manyexpressed insecurity and doubts when asked for a reason not to consumeirradiated foods. This is an indication that the process is covered superficiallyin their curricula. Concerning policy, if food irradiation was to be pursuedfurther, the place to start would be in food science curricula, as this is the basisof future professionals in charge of researching its use and/or implementingthe process.

Results in the present study obtained from consumers in a developingcountry did not differ substantially from those obtained from consumers indeveloped countries. Consumer doubts about food irradiation seem to beworldwide. Argentina exports food, some of which could be irradiated toprolong its sanitary condition over transport and storage. This irradiationprocess will probably be resisted by consumers in other countries, whetherthey are developed or underdeveloped, and trade policies in food-exportingcountries such as Argentina should consider this issue. As regards the policy onfood irradiation for foods commercialized within Argentina, the promotion ofthis technology by government agencies would be costly to overcome thepresent negative perceptions, and at present, these costs would not seem to bejustified confronted with other social priorities.

Future research related to the limitations of the present study should coverthe following:

(1) Irradiated foods could be targeted to low-income populations to ensurethey receive hygienic foods regardless of their limited storage and/orprocessing facilities. Thus, it would be of interest to gain an insight aboutthe perceptions of this population segment.

(2) Professionals and researchers in the area of food technology and humanhealth can have a particular influence in the implementation and promo-tion of food irradiation. A study on their perceptions of this technologywould allow designing adequate policies.

(3) In the present research, PI was measured but without specifying a pricevalue. How much more or less would consumers from developing coun-tries be willing to pay for irradiated food is an issue of interest.


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PERCEPTION OF IRRADIATED FOODS AMONG STUDENTS (SECONDARY, UNIVERSITY [FOOD SCIENCE AND NONFOOD SCIENCE]) AND ADULTS IN ARGENTINA