Nolila Mohd Nawi

Consumers’ Attitude Toward the Food Safety Certificate (FSC) in Malaysia

Consumers are becoming selective in food purchasing due to concerns over food safety. Cleanliness, safety, and nutrition are among the desirable food characteristics sorted out by consumers. The Food Safety Certificate (FSC) has been found to be detrimental to the increase in the level of consumer confidence on the safety of food products available in markets. This study investigates consumers’ attitude toward FSC while purchasing food products in Malaysia. The data collected from 350 respondents through a face-to-face survey were analyzed using descriptive and factor analysis methods. The results of the study indicated that the majority of consumers are aware of the FSC function and existence in food products. Factor analysis identified brand, trust, health consciousness, and environmental consciousness as factors associated by consumers with FSC. The results indicate that FSC not only ensures consumer trust on food safety but also helps producers in operation streamlining and quality management.Consumers are becoming selective in food purchasing due to concerns over food safety. Cleanliness, safety, and nutrition are among the desirable food characteristics sorted out by consumers. The Food Safety Certificate (FSC) has been found to be detrimental to the increase in the level of consumer confidence on the safety of food products available in markets. This study investigates consumers’ attitude toward FSC while purchasing food products in Malaysia. The data collected from 350 respondents through a face-to-face survey were analyzed using descriptive and factor analysis methods. The results of the study indicated that the majority of consumers are aware of the FSC function and existence in food products. Factor analysis identified brand, trust, health consciousness, and environmental consciousness as factors associated by consumers with FSC. The results indicate that FSC not only ensures consumer trust on food safety but also helps producers in operation streamlining and quality management.

Enhancing Poultry Industry Competitiveness: Consumer Perspective on Chicken Meat Quality Based on Sensory Characteristics

The increasing demand for chicken meat has caused producers to increase their productivity through enhanced production techniques. Further increase in demand for quality meat products has been predicted in the country. This study seeks to investigate factors that influence consumer perception toward chicken meat quality. Face-to-face interviews were carried out with 569 consumers at selected shopping malls located in Klang Valley areas. The majority of the respondents perceived quality as an important criterion for buying decisions. The finding revealed that nine factors have influenced consumer perception on meat quality, namely color, size, springiness, chicken aroma, fatty/oily taste, sweetness, visible fat, tenderness, and fibrousness. Among these factors, tenderness was found to be the most important criterion that influenced consumer preference toward chicken meat quality during buying decisions. Good production practices and proper marketing strategies are among recommendations to poultry industry players toward fulfilling consumer demand for good quality chicken meat.

Factors That Influence the Implementation of Postharvest Handling Practices Among Fresh Vegetable Producers in Selected States in Malaysia

This article examines the factors that influence the implementation of postharvest handling practices among fresh vegetable producers in selected states in Malaysia. The primary data were collected through a survey using a questionnaire with the total of 121 fresh vegetable producers. The study was conducted at Kedah, Pahang, Kelantan, and Selangor. The study utilizes the stratified sampling method. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Factor analysis was carried out to identify the factors that influence the fresh vegetable producers to implement postharvest handling practices on their fresh produce. Based on the analysis, 6 factors were identified, namely, infrastructure, market availability, resources, government policy, knowledge, and attitude. The practice of postharvest handling on fresh produce can create value added to the product as well as increase the income of producers and enhance farm productivity.

Factors Influencing Consumer’s Intention towards Online Grocery Shopping

Online platform nowadays has started to replace the traditional market and require consumers to change their buying habits and patterns extensively. Thus, the trend of having grocery delivered to the doorstep has been introduced to Malaysian consumers especially who lives in urban area. Previous studies have shown that online groceries are not consistently purchased by the consumers due to several reasons such as inconsistent quality and lack of sensory characteristics. However, there are still number of consumers who continuously shops groceries through online platform. Thus, the aim of this study is to determine factors influencing consumer’s intention to shop groceries online. The primary data were collected using structured questionnaire in the form of online survey with 521 respondents in Klang Valley, Malaysia. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive analysis and factor analysis. The findings of the study showed that majority of the online grocery shoppers are female with the age ranged between 26-35 years old. Besides that, results from factor analysis revealed that perceived usefulness, satisfaction, perceived risk, perceived information accessibility and perceived ease of use are among factors that influenced consumer’s intention towards online grocery shopping. Therefore, this study can be used to assist online grocery retailers to formulate effective strategies to gain more consumers’ confidence to make use of online grocery shopping.

Consumers’ Preferences towards Meat and Meat Products with Traceability Systems in Klang Valley, Malaysia

Nowadays, consumers’ concerns towards food safety have significantly increasing and they tend to generally aware about their health. This concern has become particularly serious because of food scandal and countless cases that happened around the world. These scandals lead to negative effect and perception to consumers, food companies and also both supply and demand chain. There are a lot of strategies by agriculture food industries to increase food safety such as developed and implemented traceability systems among consumers. However, the awareness level towards traceability system among Malaysian consumers was low. The aim of this research is to determine consumers’ preferences towards meat and meat products with traceability systems in Klang Valley, Malaysia. This study was based on a quantitative approach and the primary data were collected using structured questionnaire via face to face interview with 503 respondents. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive analysis and chi square analysis. The results of the study indicated that majority of the consumers prefer to use traceability systems and they think traceability systems are important when buying meat and meat products. In addition, the results of chi-square analysis revealed that socio-demographics profile such as gender, race, marital status, educational level, income and household size has an association with respondent’s preferences towards meat and meat products with traceability systems. Traceability systems have the potential to be implemented if the government, meat producers, marketers, and retailers have a better understanding towards preference of consumers towards meat and meat products with traceability systems .It also allows them to start planning for the implementation of traceability system in near future as a strategy to improve their service which in line with the increasing of food safety awareness among consumers.

Factors Affecting the Development of Long-Term Relationships Among SME Entrepreneurs in the Malaysian Agro-Based Industry

A strategy based on long-term relationships is considered one of the most effective options, especially for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), to be competitive and sustainable in the market. There are many benefits that can be obtained from long-term relationships that include efficiency and effectiveness in operations, total cost reduction, better delivery performance, and higher profit. Thus, the objective of this study is to determine factors that influence the development of long-term relationships among SME entrepreneurs in the Malaysian agro-based industry. The data collected from 226 entrepreneurs has revealed 7 important factors that influence the development of long-term relationships of SME entrepreneurs with their preferred buyers. These factors were trust, reputation, quality, satisfaction, power/dependence, relationship specific investments and communication. This result provides a basis for managers to put more effort into developing business relationships in order to create high competitive advantage in the market.