Food fraud and consumers' choices in the wake of the horsemeat scandal

Purpose – In 2012, the European food industry was hit by a food fraud: horsemeat was found in<br/>pre-prepared foods, without any declaration on the package. This is commonly referred to as the<br/>“horsemeat scandal”. The purpose of this paper is to investigate consumers’ preferences across<br/>Europe for a selected ready meal, ready to heat (RTH) fresh lasagne, to consider whether the effects of<br/>potential food frauds on consumers’ choices can be mitigated by introducing enhanced standards of<br/>RTH products.<br/>Design/methodology/approach – An online survey was administered to 4,598 consumers of RTH<br/>lasagne in six European countries (Republic of Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Germany and Norway),<br/>applying discrete choice experiments to estimate consumers’ willingness to pay for enhanced food<br/>safety standards and highlight differences between countries.<br/>Findings – Many similarities across countries emerged, as well as some differences. Consumers in<br/>Europe are highly concerned with the authenticity of the meat in ready meals and strongly prefer to<br/>know that ingredients are nationally sourced. Strong regional differences in price premiums exist for<br/>enhanced food safety standards.<br/>Originality/value – This research adds relevant insights in the analysis of consumers’ reaction to<br/>food fraud, providing practical guidelines on the most appropriate practices that producers should<br/>adopt and on the information to reduce food risk perception among consumers. This would prove<br/>beneficial for the food processing industry and the European Union. The survey is based on a<br/>representative sample of European consumers making this the largest cross-country study of this kind.