Eureka! Institutional Repository

Food safety is an important public health issue worldwide. Communication of risk is one of the critical elements for food safety management. Current food safety studies have focused on contamination by hazards or risk factors. There is limited research on consumers ' beliefs, knowledge and perception of the real risk food has to their health. This study was intended to collect and evaluate the knowledge and perceptions of Cypriot consumers regarding food safety. We certainly need to understand more about the motivations and beliefs of individuals in order to understand why they consider a food dangerous and why another food safe. The different socio-economic characteristics, the cultural aspects, the level of educations are certainly decisive factors in forming beliefs about food safety. Specific objectives of this paper A) to understand the thinking and beliefs of Cypriot consumers on food safety issues B) to investigate more deeply the awareness of Cypriot consumers on food safety issues and how the outcome is influenced by their demographic characteristics (gender, age, educational level, diet Model, place of residence, family situation. This survey is based on a questionnaire developed and distributed online to 242cyprian consumers from November 2022 until the end of December 2022. The first part of the questionnaire was to collect the demographic characteristics of the participants, while the second part was to collect information on consumers ' beliefs about the safety of individual food categories such as meat, dairy and their analogues, fresh food and various food safety issues such as food fraud, climate change and genetically modified food (GMO). Likert 5-point scale analysis was used to give respondents the ability to choose the level of agreement or disagreement with each question. Basic descriptive statistical tools were used to analyse the data, combined with cross-tabs and applying an X-Square test (chi2). After the above, some results were obtained from Cypriot consumers, about their way of thinking or the second thoughts they may have on food safety issues. Educational attainment seems to significantly affect, whether they consider afood assafe, whether food fraud is a food safety issue. Also, the age group seems to influence in various points such as in their view whether the consumption of fresh food is a matter of food safety. Furthermore, it is noticed that the consumption of meat analogues and whether it representsa food safety issue is influenced by how many people are in the household, educational attainment and whether they are vegetarian or vegan. Educational attainment also seems to influence whether they consider genetically modified food to be a food safety issue. Concern about the risk of covid-19 infection appears to be influenced by the fact that there are children in the household. On the other hand, the age group also has an impact on the extent of trust in National Food Safety Authorities, the trust of farmers for safety issues, the trust of food producers and food quality assurance agencies, the trust of the International Food and Agriculture Organizations (e.g.FAO), and the trust they have in a food company that holds a food qualitycertificate. In conclusion, it follows that children in the family, educational attainment and age group particularly affect the outcomes responses of volunteers taking part in the survey.