Can people want to store food safely but still organise their fridge poorly?

Details

Researchers surveyed Italian consumers through a smartphone app about their knowledge, perceptions and past behaviour concerning food storage in household refrigerators. Poor organisation can encourage microorganisms to grow and contamination to spread between foods, making storage habits relevant to food safety.

Respondents had positive attitudes towards safe storage and were willing to practise it, but their responses revealed inadequate fridge organisation. The researchers also used statistical models to examine how attitudes, feeling able to organise the fridge safely, wanting to do so, and expected positive feelings related to intentions.

Feeling able to act and wanting to act were strongly linked to intentions. The analysis suggested that attitudes, expected positive feelings and feeling able to act were also linked to intentions through the desire to act. Extending the basic model helped explain intentions better. However, reported past behaviour was not found to correlate with any of the factors examined: explaining intentions did not amount to explaining what respondents had done.

The authors suggested that food-storage messages should address egg placement and build people's sense that safe storage is manageable, their desire to do it and the positive feelings they expect from doing so. These were proposals, not tested solutions. The survey did not establish that changing messages would improve fridge organisation or reduce illness.