Consumer food safety knowledge in Türkiye: what are the practices at home?

This study aims to determine the factors affecting consumers’ knowledge of food safety and food safety practices at home. A survey was conducted among 600 consumers in Türkiye. The Binary Logit model was applied to the data collected online. The study indicated that 73.5% of consumers knew the concept of food safety. Consumers perceived chicken and red meat as high-risk, but viewed milk and dairy products, eggs, fish, vegetables and fruit as low-risk. The vast majority of consumers stated that they would never use milk and dairy products, fish, poultry, red meat and eggs if they were past their expiration date and that they would use vegetables and fruit if they were still tasty. Knowledge about food safety is statistically affected by the variables of gender, educational level, number of household members, believing agricultural producers to be safe and reading food labels, but not by the variables of marital status, household food expenditure and age. Consumers, like governments, play an important role in ensuring food safety. Everyone’s knowledge and practice of food safety will help prevent foodborne illness. Information and training on this subject from relevant institutions are extremely important.