Consumers’ awareness on food additives in packaged food in Kedah

Advancement in technology gives good impacts to the entire world, especially for the industrial sector. Food industries can be categorized into several groups which include food processing, food service, food manufacturing, and others. Food additives are used to give flavour to products besides adverse in extending products' shelf life. Food additives may give a lot of beneficial functions to the product but it also has the negative effect to the consumers if it is being consumed in long-term period. As a results, this problem has gained consumer and government attention. This study aimed to study the socioeconomic background of the respondents who consuming packaged food. Besides, this study also intended to investigate relationship between several characteristics of demographic and three variables which considered were knowledge, attitude, and practice. In this study, survey was conducted and the questionnaire was developed by using KAP survey model. The reliability of the questionnaire was checked by Cronbach's alpha. Convenience sampling method was used to sample a total 384 of packaged food consumers in Kedah for the survey. The data obtained were analyzed using Chi-square test via Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software. The result showed that relationship existed for marital status versus attitude, and monthly income versus attitude towards food additive in packaged food. However, there were no significant relationship, for marital status and monthly income towards knowledge and also practice towards food additive in packaged food. For other characteristics of demographic like gender, educational level, the result showed that there is no relationship between the gender, educational level and the three variables which are knowledge, attitude and practice. This study is significant to give awareness about food additives besides gaining policymakers' attention on the importance of having program to help improve consumer awareness about food additives.