Study Of Consumers'preference For Local Food From The Perspective Of Multidimensional Quality

Modern food supply model,large-scale,integrated,multi-link,has created huge economic benefits,while at the same time it is gradually questioned by consumers and its limitations have become increasingly prominent.Firstly,in modern food supply mode,spatial distances between producers and consumers are long.Long-time transport with long time affects food quality(freshness),and may causes problems in cost,environment(transport emissions,etc).Secondly,in the mode of modern food supply,intermediate links between producers and consumers are very extensive,which separates the natural connection between them.In this case,consumers can not know food production,processing and circulation process,which leads to a trend that lack of transparency in the food supply chain and consumers distrust of modern food system.Thirdly,modern food supply mode is aimed to obtain economic benefits.Producers' income such as farmers'account for a least percentage in the whole supply chain while economic benefits are generously.With the modern food supply chain getting longer and a large number of chemical biological agents continuously being used,it is more difficult to directly check food quality.In this case,consumers' mistrust of modern food system was raised up.As one of the important ways to cope with this lack of trust,green sustainable local food has been widely concerned at home and abroad.In foreign countries,researches on local food increase.So is it in China.But consumers' awareness of local food is rare.Local food hasn't caused our attention.Under these circumstances,consumers' awareness,attitudes and willingness to pay to local food are researched.Mainly under the background of food safety,enlightenment from local food's development in both home and abroad was gained,preferences of consumers for local food are researched,corresponding measures for development of local food are proposed in order to serve consumers.Using data collected from 934 local food consumers in China,we probe into the multidimensional quality characteristics that affect consumer preferences for local food by Structural equation model.Furthermore,we divide the consumer preferences into three categories:food quality,relationship quality and social quality,and assume that there is a certain correlation among the three quality dimensions,consumer attitude,and willingness to pay.The results show that the consumer perception of the local food quality has significant positive effect on their attitudes,and the food quality has higher level effect than the social quality and the relationship quality.In addition,consumer perception and attitude affect the final behavior,they are willing to pay a premium price for local food.