The role of information in consumers’ behavior: a survey on the counterfeit food products

The presence of counterfeit food appears to be rising and has not been opposed by close cooperation between producers, governments, or consumers organizations concerned with trade, health, and counterfeiting. The aim of this study is to identify and classify the relationships between the purchase of counterfeit food and the consumers’ characteristics in order to provide public and private decision makers a support in deciding strategies to counteract this problem. To reach this objective a survey was carried out in Italy during 2014-2016 with a sample of 405 consumers. A multiple correspondence analysis has been carried out. The preliminary findings point out the presence of different groups of consumers illustrating heterogeneous behaviors toward counterfeit food. In addition, the results point out that the purchase of counterfeit food seems to be linked to lower income and a lack of information. Due to negative public effects of this phenomenon, it seems to be necessary to prevent dishonest trading and counterfeit food productions encouraging cooperative approaches to provide consumers with sufficient information to improve their awareness.