A survey on the consumer's recognition of food labeling in seoul area

Abstract

This study investigated consumer's recognition of food labeling in order to contribute to the development of food labels which are more informative to consumers. The questionnaires had been collected from 120 male and female customers living in Seoul with the age between 10's and 60's from November 2nd to November 7th 2009. For checking the food label at the time of purchase, 58.3% of the consumers checked the food label and the main reason for checking the food label was to confirm sell-by date (60.1%). Sixty percent of the consumers were satisfied with the current food labeling. Among those who are not satisfied, 30.6% complained about difficult terms to understand and 25.8% were dissatisfied with insufficient information. In every age group, most people were not satisfied with labeling on food ingredient and additives, followed by date of manufacture and sell-by date. 53.1% of consumers demanded to label date of manufacture and sell-by date together. For more clear information, consumers wanted use-by date (47.5%) rather than sell-by date (23.3%). 56.7% of consumers was dissatisfied with warning information such as allergic warning and the reasons for dissatisfaction were poor visibility (37.5%) and insufficient information (33.4%). Moreover most consumers (90.0%) showed little knowledge on irradiation. To improve of the food labeling standards into consumer-oriented standards, both amendment of the food labeling standards and consumer education will be necessary.