e-ISSN 2231-8542
ISSN 1511-3701
Golnaz Rezai, Zainalabidin Mohamed and Mad Nasir Shamsudin
Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science, Volume 20, Issue 1, March 2012
Keywords: Manufactured food, Halal logo, confidence, Muslim consumers, logit model
Published on:
Consumers' confidence in Halal labelled food is shaped by numerous factors. These include advertising,information on food ingredients and announcements, various Halal claims, and warnings on non Halal foodproducts which carry a Halal logo. A survey was conducted among 1560 Muslim respondents all over Malaysiavia a structured questionnaire to evaluate and assess consumers' degree of confidence in manufactured Halallabelled food products and the Halal logo that comes with them. A descriptive statistic was used to identifythe socio-economic/demographic characteristics and confidence of the respondents toward the Halal labelledfood. The logit model was used to determine the extent to which selected socio-economic/demographiccharacteristics and attitudinal factors influenced the respondents' opinions towards and confidence in Halallabelled food products. In general, various socio-economic/demographic and attitudinal characteristics werefound to significantly influence the likelihood of the respondents' degree of confidence in the "halalness" of manufactured food products that carry the Halal logo. The older generation, particularly the rural folk, andthose with higher education level and higher level of religiosity seemed to be likely less confident with the Halallabelled food products. Meanwhile, attitudinal factors such as without JAKIM Halal logo, food products fromnon-Muslim countries, unfamiliar brand and no clear list of ingredients make consumers feel less confidentwith the products. Thus, most Malaysians are still unsure or do not have the full confidence in the Halallabelled food products with regard to its "halalness". Thus, monitoring and enforcement of the Halal laws andregulations have to be carried out on a regular basis to build consumers' confidence towards these products
ISSN 1511-3701
e-ISSN 2231-8542