Consumers’ awareness towards contaminated peanut-based products in Terengganu

In Malaysia, peanut consumption has been consumed as peanut candy, roasted peanut, unshelled peanut, and satay sauce. However, there are several cases that peanut-based products have been contaminated with Aflatoxin, Salmonella, and physical metal piece. There are a few incidences of contaminated peanut-based products that happened in Malaysia include in Terengganu. This issue happened due to the level of Aflatoxin in peanut-based products is exceeding the permitted limit by Malaysia Food Act 1983 and Regulation 1985. Thus, this study aims to determine the consumers’ awareness of contaminated peanut-based products in Terengganu. The independent variables in this study are knowledge, attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control, while the dependent variable is consumers’ awareness of contaminated peanut-based products. The quantitative research design was employed and the questionnaire was structured based on Theory Planned Behavior (TPB) and Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practice (KAP) Model. This study was applying a purposive sampling method that was involved 150 consumers in Terengganu. SPSS version 21.0 was be used to analyse the data using reliability analysis, descriptive analysis, normality analysis and Spearmen correlation. Based on the result of this study, the result for knowledge, attitude, and subjective norm have a high mean score, while consumer’s awareness towards contaminated peanut-based product and perceived behavioral control have a medium mean score. Besides, this study also shows that all the variables had a significant relationship between attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control with consumers’ awareness towards contaminated peanut-based products except the variable of knowledge was not significant. From this study, hopefully, the consumers have an increase in awareness and have a better understanding of the symptoms and effects of contaminated peanut-based products to prevent food-borne illness.