Consumer Trust Deficit and Repair Mechanisms in Food Safety Certification: Evidence from China’s Online Fruit Market

This study examines why consumer trust in China’s food safety certification system remains deficient despite the widespread use of certification, and how this deficit can be repaired, with a focus on the Commitment Certificate of Compliance (CCC). Drawing on signaling theory, institutional trust theory, and decoupling theory, we develop a framework of signal failure under institutional trust deficit and test the asymmetric effects of decoupling perception and institutional efficacy cognition on consumer trust, willingness to buy (WTB), and willingness to pay a premium (WTP). Data were obtained from an online survey of 1047 consumers in 30 provincial-level regions of China through Wenjuanxing in 2026, with IP restrictions and attention checks to ensure data quality. We employ OLS, Probit, and ordered Probit models, together with Bootstrap mediation, propensity score matching, and moderation analyses. The results show that decoupling perception is negatively associated with trust (β = −0.0984, p < 0.01), WTB, and WTP, and this association remains robust after matching (ATET = −0.1027, p < 0.01). Institutional efficacy cognition is positively associated with trust (β = 0.0638, p < 0.01) and WTB, but not WTP. Perceived risk reduction, quality expectation improvement (indirect effect = 0.0371), and trust repair partially mediate these relationships. The repair effect is stronger on low-trust platforms and among consumers with high food safety awareness. Trust repair therefore requires a shift from issuing certificates to building institutional trust.