Trust in Label Information to Recuperate Consumer's Confidence for Meat: A Compared Analysis among Canada, Italy, and Spain

The analysis consisted in a field experiment performed by testing the opinions of different consumers groups: two of them located in the European Regions respectively: Friuli-Venezia-Giulia in Italy and Navarra in Spain; a third one located in the Ontario region, Canada. The data were processed by using a multivariate structural equation in the multi-group version. The enquiry was performed in 2003, just after the news about BSE disease were released in some UE countries, and consisted in a regional survey designed ad' hoc and submitted by face to face home made interviews, to collect information about consumer habits, opinions and evidences about trust in the food label. By testing the cross-country consumer's behaviours it was allowed to get evidences of the customers confidence (credence quality), with the information diffused by different markets outlets and in different regions. The conclusions were that the market channels released different amount of information about the risk safety specifically: i) at the hypermarket the information were passed to consumers through the product label (objective trait); ii) at the traditional butcher's it prevailed the trust in the vendor that generated the credence quality in the product (psychological trait). These different consumer's attitudes were translated into behavioural attitudes and decisions to buy the beef meat product