Food Information Requirements of the Indian Consumers

Abstract

Because of increase in the complexity of the food supply chain, there is information asymmetry in the food industry. But, in other hand, due to increase in concern over health, sustainability, local production, genetically modified crops and welfare issues, there is increase in concern of consumers regarding food information. Similarly, food information has direct implication to food safety. Although nutritional labelling is common in India, there exist knowledge gap about the actual informational need of the Indian consumers regarding the food they are consuming. This paper using the primary data collected through the structured web questionnaire tries to explore what information are required by the Indian consumers regarding the food and calculates their average willingness to pay for food with higher information. Survey was conducted in the month of March-April, 2019. A total of 514 valid responses were considered in the study. It was found that maximum number of consumers are willing to know more about chemical used at any stage, followed by production and marketing information and dietary health restrictions, respectively. It is found that Indian consumers at an average willing to pay 11.06% more for food with higher level of food information, than ordinary food. This research is valuable for future research on food information and various authorities to make policies regarding food information.