survey Ital. J. Food Sci., vol. 27 - 2015 1 - Keywords: food safety, public perception and awareness, Turkey, EU accession - PercePtion and awareness of the euroPean union food safety framework s. yasara and e. BoseLLib* aEuropean Commission Certified Senior Food Safety Risk Expert, working at Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Suleyman Demirel University, 32260 Isparta, Turkey bDepartment of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, Marche Polytechnic University, Via Brecce Bianche 10, 60131 Ancona, Italy *Corresponding author: e.boselli@univpm.it AbstrAct A survey was conducted on a turkish Educated Group (tG), European Educated Group (EG) and a turkish Public Group (tPG), to reveal possible differences in the perception and awareness of the EU Food safety policy. the majority was aware which authority is responsible for food safe- ty at national level but did not clearly understand how to make food complains (mostly made to food companies instead of public institutions). the manufacturer name and price were important for the turks, the food label for EG. “Food safety” was associated to “quality control” and “healthy life” by the tG and EG groups; however, the tPG understood it as “healthy life” and “food terror”. Individuals with higher education showed a high interest in the food package. Halal certification was highly appreciated by tG and tPG. 2 Ital. J. Food Sci., vol. 27 - 2015 INtrODUctION turkey is a developing country and a recent official report on the growth rate in the agricul- tural and food sector has clearly demonstrated that turkey has gradually increased its yearly food production (MFAL, 2012). In 2013 in tur- key, cheese production is set to register 9% re- tail value growth and drinking milk products will likely register a growth of 6%. the market of both meat and meat products and of fish and fish products has recorded an average annual growth of 11% and 13% over 2007-2012, respec- tively. In the same period, turkey’s market for vegetable, potato and fruit products recorded av- erage growth of 8% (EUrOMONItOr, 2014). the issue of quality control and of an efficient qual- ity assurance is essential and inevitable in eve- ry single food production line. Any risk, hazard and potentially undesirable substance entering the food chain must be monitored by the author- ity (YAsAr, 2011). turkey is a candidate coun- try of the European Union (EU) and its progress is very appreciated in terms of implementation and reinforcement of the common Agricultural Policy (cAP) and of the EU regulations on food safety since the start of the EU accession nego- tiation (October 2005). turkey has now changed its national food safety policy to align with the EU rules. As a consequence, the turkish public opinion has become more aware on important issues of food safety, such as genetically modi- fied organisms (GMOs), the ban of unofficial food production, food traceability and the rapid alert systems (MFAL, 2012). the effects of such pub- licity should be monitored in terms of consum- er perception, habits and response to these is- sues in order to take the necessary actions in view of the EU accession. Public perception and awareness on food safety are not only about human health but also about agricultural diversity, ecology, en- vironmental protection and food culture (HOLM and KILDEVANG, 1999). the effects of the re- inforcement of new food safety regulations in the public mind of a given country are under the influence of an efficient publicity by the media as well as by the public authorities. Any innovation and technological change as- sociated with food production (e.g., GMO or residues of pesticides) is perceived as some- how important to food consumers (HOLM and KILDEVANG, 1999). Policy makers are primar- ily interested in consumers’ attitudes towards food safety and their related practices. More- over, food producers and retailers, public au- thorities and health educators shall know the reflection of food safety in the public mind not only in turkey, but also in wider communities, which mainly determine the direction of food production to a better quality of life (FrANcIs, 1979; rOZIN et al., 1999). the effect of the media in the food risk com- munication has been widely discussed. It was recently concluded that the mass publicity on food safety risk management may have induced long-lasting effects on the perception by the Eu- ropeans, particularly in the case of GMO derived food products (sWINNEN and VANDEMOOrtELE, 2010). therefore, mislead or exaggerated infor- mation created by the media in the risk commu- nication between the authority and public can be corrected by the evidences based on scientific data. the authority should pay more attention to publish the information supported by scien- tific data and literature, since such scientific ev- idences are much more appreciated by the con- sumer and are seriously taken into account, as already reported (FrEWEr et al., 1997). this at- titude leads to an efficient risk communication. similar implications were reported earlier from a study conducted on turkish subjects (AYGEN et al., 2012). On the other hand, earlier reports, for instances, on the cases of dioxin, bsE or foot and mouth disease, were published more ex- tensively than the corrective scientific actions adopted later (sWINNEN et al., 2005). this indi- cated that the policy makers should communi- cate with the public to measure their level of un- derstanding of any modifications and changes in the risk management and how the quality of life would have been enhanced by implement- ing the new changes. the way in which information is received pos- sibly determines the perception by the public on the food risks. It was reported that most of con- sumers are rationally ignorant at first glance (MccLUsKEY and sWINNEN, 2004). For instance, the public opinion think that organically grown products which naturally could bear a high risk of mycotoxins are safer than conventional food products where such risks are easily manage- able (LOUrEIrO et al., 2001). Gender and edu- cation are consistent demographic predictors of food-risk perceptions. Furthermore, non-de- mographic predictors are also important, and these include the nature of the perceived threat, the public’s trust in regulatory authorities, the source of the information and the way in which it is distributed, and health and environmental concerns (ELLIs and tUcKEr, 2009). there are some studies undertaken in turkey which partially determined the degree of percep- tion and awareness of food safety in the country (sANLIEr and KONAKLIOGLU, 2012; bEKtAs et al., 2011; DEMIrbAs et al., 2012; AYGEN, 2012; UNUsAN, 2007; cELILE, 2012). the credibility of the source of information was shown to highly influence the attitude-formation condition, but its impact on changing the present attitude is low (KUMKALE et al., 2010). strong correlation was reported between the food safety knowl- edge, attitude and practices (sANLIEr and KO- NAKLIOGLU, 2012). the females were found to be more knowledgeable than males, in particu- lar for household safety (cELILE et al., 2012). Ital. J. Food Sci., vol. 27 - 2015 3 A high income and education level as well as the increased age increases the probability of having knowledge on food safety (bEKtAs et al., 2011). Male consumers are more attached to the attribute “safety” compared to female consum- ers (VErbEKE and VIAENE, 1999). Furthermore, males below the age of 30 attached significant- ly less to the absence of hormones and harm- ful substances in food than did older consumer categories (VErbEKE and VIAENE, 1999; cELILE et al., 2012). total food safety knowledge was also found to be statistically higher in female than male students (sANLIEr and KONAKLIOG- LU, 2012; AYGEN, 2012; UNUsAN, 2007). Previ- ous technical knowledge on a given food pro- duction line inevitably affects the awareness of food safety, particularly in the house mem- bers in turkey (cELILE et al., 2012). However, DEbIrMAs et al. (2012) indicated that the milk producers did not demonstrate a good level of food safety awareness. Moreover, two surveys regarding the awareness of household food safe- ty (UNUsAN, 2007; cELILE, 2012) revealed that the gender, age and education level are impor- tant attributes for such awareness. In the present survey, we measured the re- sponse of different social groups of the turk- ish public opinion to specific parameters of food safety issues and we compared them with the response of a group of EU citizens. the aim of the study was to register the diversity of the con- sumer attitudes towards the safety of food and to establish a relationship between consumer attitudes, knowledge and behaviour of the dif- ferent groups regarding food safety. thus, this will be the first study to extensively reveal the degree of perception and awareness of consum- ers on recently introduced aspects of food safety during the EU accession negotiation of turkey. MAtErIALs AND MEtHODs Selection and participation of the subjects A questionnaire consisting of ten specific questions related to the perception and aware- ness of food safety was developed (table 1). three consecutive surveys, each carried out on a so- cio-demographically different group were carried out using the questionnaire of table 1. three groups of subjects were interviewed. the first group was from national academic and administrative staff employed at the suley- man Demirel University (sDU) located in Ispar- ta (turkey). this group (identified in the man- uscript as turkish Educated Group - tG) con- sisted of 242 persons who answered the online available questionnaire. the Europeans attending an Erasmus Inten- sive Programme on Food and Feed safety (IP- rAsAFF, 2012) formed the second group. the number of subjects (university students and pro- fessors) in the second group (identified as Eu- ropean Educated class - EG) was 73 and was also asked to answer the online survey too. the number of respondents was 47. the third group consisted of randomly select- ed subjects living all over turkey. the total num- ber of participants in the third group was 250; the persons were randomly selected on the street in several towns in turkey. this group was iden- tified as “turkish Public Group - tPG”. Preparation of the questionnaire the survey team prepared several ques- tions during the lecture courses of the third year class of undergraduate students at sDU. the academic lecturers who were specialised table 1 - Questionnaire on the perception and awareness of food safety. No. Question (with options) Possible answers 1 Your age 15-20 20-30 30-50 Over 50 2 Education level Primary Secondary University 3 Country of origin Turkey Poland Non-European Belgium The Netherlands Italy continued table 1. 4 Ital. J. Food Sci., vol. 27 - 2015 4 Gender Female Male 5 Which Ministry regulates food safety Health Environment Agriculture/Food Energy Tourism 6 What is the degree of importance Producer Name of the following item when you buy a product? (No, Low, Medium, High) Price Food Label Price and Producer 7 What is the degree of importance Quality control of the following item in respect of Food Safety? Healthy Life and Nutrition (No, Low, Medium, High) GMO-Food Terror etc. Natural/Organic Foods High cost of living 8 How do you regulate your daily life Consumption of foods sold in open-air market according the concept of food safety Sensitive to Food-Packing materials (No, very low, low, normal, high, very high) Sensitive to “expiring date” Complaining on “food-fraud” Buying foods packed in syntetic-plastic material Eating in the restaurants/places you have no idea of Eating Ready-made foods Preference for Organic/Natural foods Do you trace the origin of the food you buy? Buying foods containing additives Eating “Fast-foods” 9 How often and where do you call when you Call emergency (e.g., 112) have serious complaints on the foods you buy? Call police number (No, seldom, normally, always) Call a specific number (such as 174 ALOO Food in Turkey) Call Food Inspector Warning the seller Search the Internet Tell friends 10 If you think the publicity on food safety What needed to be improved is not sufficient, what do you recommend The label shall contain “GMO” or “GMO-free” to be done by the Authority? “Public awareness” shall be improved by the ministry The names of the food firms making frauds shall be made “public” “Unofficial” food production shall be banned The results of “official controls and food analysis” shall be made “public” All the food-producing-locations shall be certified All kind of un-official animal slaughering and marketting of such meat shall be banned Animal farms shall be “officially controlled” The food label shall contain “the information on undesirable substances and their legal limits” The label shall contain “the names of allergenes” Synthetic food additives should be indicated on the label Food tracebility should be extended The open-air market shall be “officially controlled” Green-houses and fields of plant production shall be “officially controlled” Fresh vegetable and fruit wholesalers and retailers shall be “officially controlled” The imported food shall be known by the consumer The food with no label shall be banned “Food terror law” must be reinforced Halal Certificate shall be issued for “suspicious foods” for muslims No. Question (with options) Possible answers continued table 1. Ital. J. Food Sci., vol. 27 - 2015 5 in food safety filtered the questions. the crite- ria for the final selection of the questions were as follows: simple to answer; demographically representative; relevance to daily life and nutri- tion; must test the general knowledge on food safety, food authority and current food safety issues and finally they should reveal the pub- lic concerns on the up-to-date problems and solutions. ten questions were selected and categorized. the questions were created and published online, and a direct link was sent to the tG and EG participants by email. the subjects of tPG were face-to-face interviewed by the survey team of students during the hol- iday at their hometown. Data analysis Data from the groups of tG and EG was collected, stored and statistically analysed by using a commercial survey website where the questionnaire was posted (sUrVEYMONKEY, 2014). A cross-check for the compliance of an- alysed data was carried out through MINIt - Ab statistical package programme (Minitab Inc., coventry, UK). All the results were then presented for each of the survey groups. the number of responses by the participants to the questions in the form of YEs/NO was subjected to the estimation of frequency. this was calcu- lated by dividing the number of positive/neg- ative responses by the number of participants who answered the questions. In the multiple choice questions, the percentage or frequen- cy of participants who ticked each of choices was similarly calculated as mentioned above. thus, the number of non-respondents was ex- cluded from the frequency calculation within each question. Additional descriptive statisti- cal elaboration of data was achieved by using Instat software ver. 3.05 (GraphPad software Inc., La Jolla, UsA). rEsULts AND DIscUssIONs Socio-demographical parameters (Q1 to Q4) In table 2, the socio-demographic data of the participants are reported. the frequency of age, gender, education level and type of occupa- tion is reported as percentage for the groups of tG, EG and tPG, respectively. the participat- ing subjects have similar age profile irrespec- tive of various social-demographical groups in the present research; in fact the age composi- tion did not differ statistically among the three groups according to the Non Parametric repeat- ed Measures ANOVA (Friedman test) performed with Instat software (P=0.6271). the percent- age of subjects aged between 15 and 20 years was around 6%; the percentage of subjects aged between 21 and 50 years was around 85% and table 2 - socio-demographic data of the participants. Age TG %1 EG % TPG % 15-20 5 6 6 21-30 37 72 31 31-50 49 17 50 Over 50 9 4 12 N2 242 47 250 Gender TG % EG % TPG % Male 66 32 70 Female 34 68 30 N 240 47 250 Education TG % EG % TPG % Primary 0 0 20 High School 4 0 20 University 60 64 60 Msc or PhD diploma 36 36 0 N 242 47 249 Occupation TG % EG % TPG % Students 28 64 14 Academics 41 36 0 Administrators 42 0 0 Contractual staffs 2 0 0 Public servants 0 0 42 Drivers 0 0 2 Farmers 0 0 10 Running Own Business 0 0 32 N 238 47 246 1TG: Turkish Educated Group; EG: European Educated Group; TPG: Turk- ish Public Group. 2N is the number of participants who answered to the question. The fre- quency (%) is calculated from the total number of participants who pro- vided an answer. those aged over 51 years was only 7%. so, the majority of the participants in the survey aged from 20 to 50 (statistically higher number of persons with an age ranging 21-50 years with respect to the other age groups, according to the Friedman test, P=0.0330). the gender ra- tio (M:F) was 65 or 70 male versus 35 or 30 fe- males for tG and tPG groups, respectively as compared to M:F ratio of 32:68 in the interna- tional group of EG. the level of education differed significant- ly between the studied groups: tPG had 20% subjects with no higher education while the majority (100%) in tG and EG groups was graduated from higher education institutions (tPG was statistically different with two-tailed P=0.0215). the same pattern well reflected the type of occupation in the groups: the major- ity of tG and EG groups were students and lecturers with less number of administration staff, while the majority in the tPG group was either of public servants or persons engaged in private business. 6 Ital. J. Food Sci., vol. 27 - 2015 table 3 - the level of awareness by the participants on the ministerial authority of food safety in their respective coun- tries. Ministry TG % EG % TPG % Health 18 21 15 Environment and Forestry 1 0 0 Energy and Natural Sources 0 0 0 Food, Agricultural and Livestock 81 79 85 Awareness on food safety management authority (Q5) It is very important for the public opinion to be aware of the public authority regulating the food safety aspects in a given country. the ma- jority (over 80%) of the participants irrespec- tive to the national and international group in- dicated that food safety management is regu- lated by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Livestock (table 3). In second place, the partic- ipants chose the Ministry of Health. the Fried- man test showed no significant differences (P=0.7613) among the three groups of partici- pants. this is, in fact, a good result, indicating that the public is highly aware of the activities of the authority. Food safety is mostly perceived by the public as health-related issue. However it is well known that food safety is an integrated issue which cov- ers not only the health of human subjects, but also the health of animal and plants as well as mark and price of food products are of high im- portance for all the subjects (70%), especially to the subjects of tG and tPG (97%), whereas the food label became another important parameter (53% of all the subjects) in addition to the pro- ducer’s name and price of the food product es- pecially in the EG group. the price per se was not very important to any of the groups (32% of all the subjects). Perception of the food safety (Q7) considering the totality of the subjects an- swering question no. 7 (table 1) (456 persons), the highest level of perception was assigned to “healthy life and nutrition” (81.5%), “quality control” (77%), “GMO-food terror etc” (63.5%) and “Natural/organic foods” (54.5%). Less im- portance was given to the “High cost of living” (21.2%), thus to the economic cost of high qual- ity food products. considering each group of subjects (table 4), tG had a high level of perception for “qual- ity control”, “healthy life and nutrition”, “GMO etc.,” and Natural/organic foods” in regard to food safety. the subjects of EG have a high lev- el of perception for “quality control”, “healthy life and nutrition” and “high cost of living” re- garding food safety. GMO issue for this inter- national group was not of high importance as compared to tPG. Highly perceived parame- ters of food safety in the tPG were the GMO is- sue and “Natural Food”, lastly “healthy life and nutrition”. this may be due to the fact that the GMO issue is very well regulated by the Euro- pean Union compared to the actual turkish leg- islation. It is easy to understand that the turk- ish public opinion could be highly manipulat- ed by the media on the issue of GMO, since this matter has not been yet fully addressed by the national authority. Application of the concept of food safety into daily life (Q8) the public opinion can only make chang- es in the daily life style upon the scientific ev- idences and information found in the media (MccLUsKEY and sWINNEN, 2011). We deter- mined what these changes are like (table 5) in the three social groups. the international group (EG) felt safe enough towards the food products sold in open markets (49% in EG ver- sus 25% in tG and 22% in tPG). this is sim- ply due to routinely controls operated in open markets in the EU. sensitivity to food packing materials received 91% preference of tG, 70% of EG and only 52% of tPG. this was found highly related with the education level. similar trend between the subject groups was found for the sensitivity to “expiring date” of the food products. In all groups, the “food complaints”, the protection of the environment. therefore, an authority which deals with a wide range of as- pects related to food safety should be extremely efficient and collaborate quickly with all the in- volved stakeholders (private companies and/or other public bodies). It should be also mentioned that in most cases food safety may be managed by differ- ent public bodies in different countries, how- ever the answer of all the groups participating to the survey was the same. In Italy for exam- ple (unlike turkey), food safety is jointly ad- ministered by the Ministry of Health and by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forest- ry; the latest is responsible for the food poli- cies. Also other Ministries can be involved in specific aspects of food safety, such as the pre- vention of food frauds (e.g., Defense in Italy) and financial irregularities related to the food sector (Economy). Consumer buying behaviour (Q6) When buying a food product there are many criteria taken into account by the consumers. Of the eligible answers proposed in the survey (table 1, question 6) the combination of trade Ital. J. Food Sci., vol. 27 - 2015 7 table 4 - Perception level of “food safety” by the consumers of different socio-demographic classes (N= 242, 47, 250 in tG, EG and tPG, respectively). TG Degree of importance (in %) Quality control Healthy Life GMO-Food Natural/Organic High cost and Nutrition Terror etc. Foods of living None 2 2 3 3 9 Low 3 3 10 9 23 Medium 17 16 17 28 43 High 78 79 71 60 25 Total1 100 100 100 100 100 EG None 5 0 11 9 13 Low 0 11 30 28 33 Medium 27 34 34 28 42 High 73 55 26 35 11 Total 100 100 100 100 100 TPG None 0 0 2 6 8 Low 4 1 2 8 12 Medium 47 44 59 57 40 High 49 55 37 30 40 Total 100 100 100 100 100 1The total percentage is referred to the total number of participants (N) who answered the questions. “buying food in synthetic materials”, “eating at the places having no idea before”, “tracing the origin of foods”, “buying food containing addi- tives” and “eating fast foods” received less fre- quency, while the preferences towards organ- ic or natural food received moderate frequen- cy by all the groups. the Friedman test did not evidence statistical differences among the three groups of subjects (P=0.2557) due to the high standard deviation of the answers. this aspect can be encouraging because it shows that the perception of food safety into daily life is very similar in European and turkish citizens of dif- ferent extraction. Reactions to food complaints (Q9) subjects were asked to indicate how they react against any food complaint they face to in their daily life (table 1, question 9). In all groups, the frequency of calling a specific number for help or calling for a police was low (72.9% of the partic- ipants has never called any emergency, police, or specific phone number to complain). twenty percents of turkish participants indicated that they called “the national food line”, ALO 174. this is a very promising result because this spe- cific public phone line has been activated only recently and is already quite well-known by the table 5 - Application of the concept of food safety into daily life (N= 242, 47, 250 in tG, EG and tPG, respectively). Preventive reactions TG Frequency1 % EG Frequency % TPG Frequency% Consumption of foods sold in open-air market 25 49 22 Complaining on “food-fraud” 55 79 41 Buying “foods packed in synthetic-plastic material 50 60 49 Eating in the restaurants/places you have no idea on 26 46 21 Eating “Ready-made foods” 50 65 68 Positive reactions Sensitive to Food-Packing materials 91 70 52 Sensitive to “expiring date” 95 87 63 Preference towards “Organic/Natural” foods 79 68 77 Do you trace the origin of the food you buy? 59 64 60 Buying “foods” containing additives 29 62 38 Eating “fast foods” 34 30 60 1The total number of participants (N) who answered the questions was reported as “total percentage”. Note that the answers were pooled from upper degree of satisfaction (high, very high answers of Table 1, question 8). 8 Ital. J. Food Sci., vol. 27 - 2015 participating subjects. the most frequently ac- tions amongst all groups were “warning the sell- er” (34.3%) and “tell the friends” (30.7%). the an- swers “search on the net” (28.7%) and “call for a food inspector” (21.2%) occurred with moder- ate frequency. Priority list of the subjects for possible changes in food safety management (Q10) Question 10 of the survey had the aim to es- tablish a list of priorities stated by the public opinion regarding the policy of the public au- thority on the issue of food safety. the results are reported in table 6. the turkish educated class (tG) highly de- manded for the following aspects to be improved: “the food should be labelled if GMO is includ- ed”, “the ministry should improve public aware- ness on food safety” and “the names of firms in- volved in frauds should be made public and fal- sified foods should be banned”. the turkish Public Group (tPG) found the latter two options very important as well. tPG group would also like to see: “the food with no label being banned”, “all kind of unofficial an- imal slaughtering and marketing of such meat shall be banned”. However, these options were not very prior- itized by the international group (EG). What the EG group mostly preferred were: “public aware- ness be improved”; “more official controls of foods”; “food labelling for allergens” and “ban- ning food with no label”. these differences between national and inter- national social classes were inevitable because Europeans have new priorities such as the issue of allergens and more official control than turk- ish citizens who are still facing problems which have been already solved in Europe, such as “ille- gal food production” and “GMO containing foods”. Halal food aspects received 50-80% attention by turkish subjects, unlike EG. cONcLUsIONs the results of this survey revealed important information which is very valuable not only for food researchers, but also for policy makers. the majority of the respondents was aware which au- thority is responsible for food safety at nation- al level but did not clearly understand how to make food complains (mostly made to food com- panies instead of public institutions). In addi- tion, the concept of food safety and subsequent behaviours were greatly different among social- demographically different classes at both nation- al and international level (Question 7 to 10). AL- tEKrAUsE et al. (1999) found that men are more likely to report risky practices than women. In our survey, the tPG was mostly formed by males belonging to the working class. they showed a higher concern (compared to the students of the tG and EG groups) towards the intrinsic safety of the food products and probably to the fami- ly safety (i.e., food terror law, ban of unauthor- ized slaughters, less trust in open-air markets, severe control of wholesalers, publication of the producers implicated in frauds, publication of the results of the public controls). social and individual factors could dampen the perception of the risks (FLYNN et al., 1998). the risk perception was reported to be influ- table 6 - consumer priorities on the actions requested to the authority (N= 242, 47, 250 in tG, EG and tPG, respectively). National and international social groups1 TG group EG group TPG Group Priority list of food issues % % % The label shall contain “GMO” or “GMO-free” 79 46 92 “Public awareness” shall be improved by the ministry 78 56 91 The names of the food firms making frauds shall be made “public” 78 1 94 “Under the cover” food production shall be banned 77 1 93 The results of “official controls and food analysis” shall be made “public” 73 52 90 All the food-producing-locations shall be certified 72 41 92 All kind of un-official animal slaughtering and marketing of such meat shall be banned 69 35 94 Animal farms shall be “officially controlled” 69 43 91 The food label shall contain “the information on undesirable substances and their legal limits” 67 33 92 The label shall contain “the names of allergens” 67 57 91 Synthetic food additives should be indicated on the label 66 48 92 Food Traceability should be extended 66 43 92 The open-air market shall be “officially controlled” 65 37 83 Green-houses and fields of plant production shall be “officially controlled” 65 30 91 Fresh vegetable and fruit wholesalers and trailers shall be “officially controlled” 63 41 92 The imported food shall be known by the consumer 61 46 92 The food with no label shall be banned 61 54 93 “Food terror law” must be reinforced 55 30 87 Halal Certificate shall be issued for “suspicious foods” for Muslims 53 28 76 1The results are the percentage of consumers (N) who are in favour of the requests. Ital. J. Food Sci., vol. 27 - 2015 9 enced by two factors: the dread or the unknown risks (sLOVIc, 1987). Food scares are highly con- sidered as the dread risks, whereas GMOs, due to their unknown consequences, are rated as highly unknown risks despite the fact that the educated consumers do not think that GMOs are risky (sLOVIc, 1987; sANLIEr and KONAKLIOG- LU, 2012; AYGEN, 2012; UNUsAN, 2007). this ev- idence was also validated by the present study; in fact, both turkish educated and public group highly rated the GMOs as risky, while the Euro- pean educated group did not. On the other hand, initial perception is also important to determine the current perception of public (AYGEN, 2012). For instance, the intensive publicity on GMOs could also affect the present perception (FrEW- Er et al., 1997), and the consumers sometimes give more weights to the negative than the posi- tive information (sWINNEN et al., 2005; MccLUs- KEY and sWINNEN, 2004). this proves that the perception is a complex issue mediated by indi- vidual and social factors. thus, the public awareness of turkish public about recently introduced aspects of food safety related to the EU accession negotiation must be improved. We propose the public authority to val- idate our data and previously data reported for turkey from a nation-wide survey (sANLIEr and KONAKLIOGLU, 2012; bEKtAs et al., 2011; DEMIr- bAs et al., 2012; AYGEN, 2012; UNUsAN, 2007). 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