Trust in food in the age of mad cow disease: a comparative study of consumersʹ evaluation of food safety in Belgium, Britain and Norway

How do food scandals like dioxines in food in Belgium (summer 1999) and the detection of mad cow disease (BSE) in Britain affect consumersʹ confidence in food safety? In this paper, based on three thousand telephone interviews during the last quarter of 1999, consumers in Belgium and Britain are compared with consumers in Norway, where there has been no such serious food scandal in recent years. ‘Trust’ is a diffuse and complex concept to measure. In this article a consumer trust typology is developed and operationalised. Combining a trust–distrust dimension and a reflexivity dimension, it is possible to differentiate between four main consumer types, which are called ‘sensible’, ‘sceptical’, ‘naive’ and ‘denying’ consumers, respectively. Does the distribution of these consumer types vary in our selected countries? Are there gender differences across national borders? Four hypotheses of how consumers could respond to food scares are investigated: the Reflexivity hypothesis, the Risk-reducing hypothesis, the Complexity-reducing hypothesis and finally the Donʹt worry, be happy hypothesis.