Genetically Modified Fresh Food - Essay Example

 Genetically Modified Fresh Food Executive Summary The research study has been prepared for analyzing the perception and awareness of the consumers towards the genetically modified food products. The genetically modified food products are those food products which are produced from genetically modified crops using genetic engineering techniques. The consumers remain cautious about the safety related to the genetic technology applied to the food products. The main problems lie in the labelling of the food products where the food products are marked as ‘fresh’ or ‘natural’, ‘fatless’ etc for fooling the consumers. The research study has been prepared in order to understand the situation of the supermarkets and the influence of the consumer perception towards these food products on their attitude, behaviour while making purchasing decision. The study will highlight statistical method to analyse and satisfy the research objectives. It will also reflect the results of the analysis followed by recommendations for improving the present situation. Finally the study will conclude with an insight into the limitations that have been faced while conducting the research study. Problem Definition The consumers always remain cautious about the safety regarding the genetic technology being applied to the foods. They remain aware of the statements of the governments and the scientists. Most of the concerns related to the genetically modified products are based on the hazard analysis and the risk assessment whereas the others are mainly speculative not having any scientific base (Blanchfield, 2003). It becomes important to understand that the issues in food as well as agriculture are complex and as a result the decisions may often get influenced by the environmental, socioeconomic, ecological, legal, moral or other political considerations (Phillips, 2001; Kleter, Peijnenburg and Aarts, 2005). It have been hypothesized that there are number of factors including education, trust, demographics, perception towards benefits and risk, knowledge related to technology etc, which can influence the decision towards acceptance of genetically modified foods (Lusk and Sullivan, 2002; Hossain, et al., 2003; Verdurme and Viaene, 2003; Solomon, et al., 2009). The actual level of awareness of the public and their perception towards the genetically modified food products is unknown. The recent problems are related to the food labelling. The food labelling results in carrying out of fraud business by the marketers related to the date tagging i.e. display by date or sell by date, various issues related to the label content and various nutritional claims. It has been found that the products often contain words like ‘natural’, ‘pure’ or ‘fresh’ in the food labelling. These terms are generally unregulated excepting some of the certified categories like ‘organic’ or ‘free range’. The issues are deepened with several concerning factors. Sometimes the labels contain information which is totally different from the real scenario. For example- the products that are labelled as having reduced fat content actually contains very high level of fat in it. Sometimes the sugar content in the products is labelled as ‘Corn Syrup’ or ‘maltodextrine’. It has been seen that average supermarkets make use of genetically modified ingredients in the food products. The main problem lies in the labelling. Excepting the organic foods, the cereals generally include Genetically Modified ingredients having high fructose corn syrup or various other corn products. These products are often labelled as ‘natural’ for fooling the consumers. An approach should be made for overcoming these issues. Approach to the Current Problems and Research Methodology The recent issues of the general public related to the genetically modified food products need to be assessed and solved. The only way of avoiding consumption of genetically modified food products is choosing organic foods which are absolutely free from any type of genetic modification. The consumers should know which products are genetically modified and read the labels carefully while buying food products. However, there still remains a question whether to avoid genetically modified food products or not. The objectives of this study is 1) to assess the public awareness as well as the perception of genetically modified food products by the general public, 2) To understand the influence of their perception towards genetically modified food on their attitude towards buying the product. Research Methodology This part of the study will discuss about the methodology that have been adapted for addressing to the research problem. The methodology has been designed based on the information and data sources which have been collected. The basic framework for gathering evidences in order to explore the research questions which have been framed earlier is known as the research design (Bryman and Bell, 2007). The research philosophy mainly comprises of two types of approaches: one being positivism and the other is interpretivism. In this research study the positivism approach have been used for conducting the research. The reason of choosing positivism over interpretivism is the nature of the research problem. The main objective of the research is to find out the public awareness as well as their perception towards genetically modified food. The research needs to evaluate the relationship between the perception of the consumers towards the genetically modified food products and its influence on their attitude or behaviour while making the purchasing decision. There are two types of research approaches used while conducting a research. One is the deductive approach and the other is the inductive approach. In this study deductive research approach has been used. Deductive research approach is mainly based on the previous scientific principles and it believes in conducting the research work based on the theories that have been developed previously while reviewing the academic literatures (Saunders et al, 2012). The research strategy which has been implemented in this study for carrying out the research is the quantitative research strategy. The reason behind choosing this research strategy is that it suits the research design the most and will be most effective in satisfying the research objectives by making a proper market research (Malhotra, 2010; Kumar, 2005; Blaxter, Hughes and Tight, 2006). The research objectives can be satisfied in a better manner by means of statistical methods. In this research study, the impact of one independent variable will be tested over another dependent variable by the use of simple frequencies and one way Anova test. While carrying on the research study, the sample size has been chosen to be 80. A set of six questions have been made for carrying on the close ended survey by making use of the Likert’s five point scale. The researcher has maintained the authenticity and simplicity while carrying out the research work. Data Analysis Reliability Test of the Questions This portion of the research study will perform analysis to check whether the above mentioned research objectives are fulfilled or not. The reliability test of the questions that have been asked to the respondents in the close ended survey have been done using the Cronbach’s Alpha testing where the Cronbach’s Alpha value has helped to determine as well as compare the individual acceptability of responses of the respondents. The following table shows the reliability according to the Cronbach’ Alpha Value:Cronbach’s Alfa (α) Reliability α ≥ 0.9 Excellent 0.9 > α ≥ 0.8 Very Good 0.8 >α ≥ 0.7 Good 0.7 > α ≥ 0.6 Moderate 0.6 > α Poor Item-Total Statistics Scale Mean if Item Deleted Scale Variance if Item Deleted Corrected Item-Total Correlation Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted Q2. Do you think there remains potential risk in the intake of GM food products? 17.6429 4.175 .527 .713 Q3. Do you think there remains potential risk in the intake of GM food products? 17.8286 3.593 .598 .683 Q4. Do you agree with the fact that there are perceived benefits of the use of GM food products? 17.7286 3.940 .553 .702 Q5. Do you think that the food labelling techniques is being utilized in a negative manner for influencing the consumers in their purchase decision? 17.6143 4.211 .453 .736 Q6. Do you feel that the increased awareness of the general public towards consumption of GM foods and its effect on the health had a negative impact on your purchase intention towards the GM products? 17.7000 3.952 .490 .725 It can be seen from the above tables 2.1 that the Cronbach’s Alpha value of the questions related to the perception of the consumers about the genetically modified food products is 0.756. This means that the reliability of the overall questionnaire set is good. The aforementioned table 2.2 also shows that if any one of the question is deleted then it will result in the decrease of the Cronbach’s Alpha value. Thus all the questions are reliable and can be analysed for meeting the objectives of the research. Frequency of the responses of the respondents on the respective questions Do you feel that the GM technologies used today, for the production of food, is harmful to health? Statistics N Valid 70 Missing 0 Do you feel that the GM technologies used today, for the production of food, is harmful to health? Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid .00 25 35.7 35.7 35.7 1.00 45 64.3 64.3 100.0 Total 70 100.0 100.0 The above table represents the responses of the respondents towards the above question ‘Do you feel that the GM technologies used today, for the production of food, is harmful to health?’ The data shows that 64.3 percent of the respondents are aware of the GM technology used in the production of food whereas 35.7 percent of the respondents are unaware of this technology used in the production of food. In this data 0 represents ‘no’ whereas ‘1’ represents ‘yes’. Do you think that there exists potential risk in the intake of GM food products? N Valid 70 Missing 0 Do you think that there exists potential risk in the intake of GM food products? Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid 2.00 1 1.4 1.4 1.4 3.00 1 1.4 1.4 2.9 4.00 31 44.3 44.3 47.1 5.00 37 52.9 52.9 100.0 Total 70 100.0 100.0 The above table shows the responses of the respondents related to the perception about the GM food products. It shows that 52.9 percent of the respondents strongly agree to the fact that there exists a potential risk in the intake of GM food products. Only 1.4 percent out of the total sample disagrees to the fact. This implies that maximum consumers perceive the GM food products to be harmful to the health. Do you feel that there should be a responsible authority for providing the exact information related to the risks or benefits associated with the GM technology applied to the food products? N Valid 70 Missing 0 Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid .00 10 14.3 14.3 14.3 1.00 60 85.7 85.7 100.0 Total 70 100.0 100.0 The above table represents the responses of the respondents related to the question ‘Do you feel that there should be a responsible authority for providing the exact information related to the risks or benefits associated with the GM technology applied to the food products?’ 85.7 percent of the respondents believe that there should be one responsible authority for providing the accurate information related to the GM technology applied to the food products. Only 14.3 percent of the respondents believe that there is no requirement of such an authority. One way Anova Test ANOVA Purchase intention Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Between Groups 8.375 8 1.047 4.427 .000 Within Groups 14.425 61 .236 Total 22.800 69 One way Anova test have been performed to understand the influence of the perception of the consumers towards the GM food products on their purchase intention. One way Analysis of Variance or ANOVA helps in performing the hypothesis test. The Anova test have been performed for testing the hypothesis where; Null Hypothesis: There lies no positive relationship between the consumer’s perception towards the GM technology applied to food products and their purchase intention in buying such products. Alternate Hypothesis: There lies a positive relationship between the consumer’s perception towards the GM technology applied to food products and their purchase intention in buying such products. It can be seen from the aforementioned table that the F-value is 4.47 which signifies that the test should accept the alternate hypothesis and reject the null hypothesis. This implies that there lies a positive relationship between the consumer’s perception towards the GM technology applied to food products and their purchase intention in buying such products. Conclusion and Recommendation The consumers remain concerned about the harmful effect of the Genetically Modified food products on the health. These concerns influence their purchase intention towards buying these products. Though there remain some benefits of using this technology like increased productivity, economic benefits etc. But these are not known by majority of the public. This brings the requirement of a responsible authority which shall represent the potential benefits as well as the risks associated with the GM technology. This will help the consumers in making their purchase decision while buying these products. Moreover, the GM technology should try to reduce its flaws for reducing the overall health concern of the consumers related to the consumption of the genetically modified food products. Limitations There remains some limitation while conducting every research study. Similarly, the limitations that have been faced while conducting this research are mentioned as follows: The problem definition based on the secondary research conducted –by selection of appropriate data in order to meet the research objectives, as a whole, was a time taking process. The primary research work had to depend on a small sampling size and interpret the result of whole population based on that particular sample size. There was less time for widening and deepening the research study. Reference List Blanchfield, J.R., 2003. European Union regulations with an emphasis on genetically modified food. In: R. H. Schmidt and G. E. Rodrick, ed. 2005. Food safety handbook. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 759-91. Blaxter, L., Hughes, C., and Tight, M., 2006. How to research. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill International. Bryman, A. and Bell, E., 2007. Business research methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hossain, F., Onyango, B., Hallman, W. and Adelaja, A., 2003. Product attributes consumer benefits and public approval of genetically modified foods. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 27(5), pp. 353-65. Kleter, G.A., Peijnenburg, C.M. and Aarts, H.J.M., 2005. Health considerations regarding horizontal gene transfer of microbial trans-genes present in genetically modified crops. Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology, 4, pp. 326-52. Kumar, R., 2005. Research methodology: A step-by-step guide for beginners. California: SAGE. Lusk, J.L. and Sullivan, P., 2002. Consumer acceptance of genetically modified foods. Food Technology, 56(10), pp. 32-7. Malhotra, N., 2010. Marketing research: An applied orientation. New Delhi: Pearson Education India. Phillips, P.W.B., 2001. Food safety, trade policy and international institutions. In: P.W.B. Phillips and R. Wolfe ed. 2001. Governing food science, safety and trade. Montreal: Queen’s University Press, pp. 27-47. Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhil, A., 2009. Research methods for business students. 3rd ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education. Solomon, M., Bamossy, G., Askegaard, S. and Hogg, M., 2009. Consumer behaviour: A European perspective. Harlow: FT Prentice Hall. Verdurme, A. and Viaene, J., 2003. Consumer beliefs and attitude towards genetically modified food: basis for segmentation and implications for communications. Agribusiness, 9(1), pp. 91-101. Appendices: Q1: Did you hear about GM food products? Q2: Do you think there remains potential risk in the intake of Gm food products? Q3: Do you feel that the GM technologies used today for the production of food is harmful for health? Q4: Do you agree with the fact that there are perceived benefits of the use of GM food products? Q5: Do you think that the food labelling techniques is being utilized in a negative manner for influencing the consumers in their purchase decision? Q6: Do you feel that the increased awareness of the general public towards consumption of GM foods and its effect on the health had a negative impact on your purchase intention towards the GM products? Q7: Do you feel that there should be responsible authority for providing the exact information related to the risk or benefits associated with the GM technology applied to the foods? Read More