Objective To examine the status and related factors of concern on packaging information of dairy products among consumers and to provide references for disseminating knowledge about diary products effectively in the public.
Methods We conducted a self-administered questionnaire survey among 4 575 consumers recruited with stratified multistage random sampling in 60 counties or districts across China between December 2016 and March 2017. We adopted univariate and multivariate statistics in data analyses.
Results Among the 4 408 participants with valid responses, the concern on packaging information of dairy products was relatively high; the average overall score for the awareness of the packaging information was 25.83 ± 5.356, with the dimensional scores of 4.26 ± 0.961 for production date and shelf life, 3.86 ± 1.058 for storage condition, 3.67 ± 1.127 for production process, 3.63 ± 1.086 for nutrition facts, 3.55 ± 1.077 for product ingredients, 3.44 ± 1.149 for certification mark, and 3.42 ± 1.139 for the region of origin and manufacturers, respectively. The results of univariate analysis demonstrated that the participants′ awareness scores differed significantly by age, marital status, educational level, permanent residence, occupation, family income per capita, and Engel's coefficient (P < 0.05 for all); further multivariate linear regression analysis revealed that the influence of educational level on the awareness score is greater (|βx| = 0.068, P < 0.001) than that of age (|βx| = 0.066, P < 0.001) and Engel′s coefficient (|βx| = 0.045, P = 0.003).
Conclusion There are differences in the level of the concern on packaging information of dairy products and the concern is mainly influenced by age, educational level, and Engel's coefficient among consumers in China.
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