Communicating Food Safety in Italian Agri-Food Companies: the entrepreneurial perspective

The aim of the study is to understand how firms communicate food safety, in particular the objectives are twofold:1) to investigate differences in communication food safety related attributes and customer gender and 2) to investigate differences in tools used to communicate food safety and customer gender. To attain these goals, first, descriptive statistics have been performed and, second, ANOVA was used to test any mean difference in customer gender with regard to the food safety attributes and communication tools used in the entrepreneur’s perspective. Data has been collected through an online survey on a sample of Italian agri-food entrepreneurs. The empirical research revealed no significant differences between males and females in the attributes of the communication strategy, while significant differences were identified in the following communication tools: contact personnel, instant messaging and influencers. The main managerial implication for agri-food entrepreneurs consists of investing resources in different tools to satisfy male and female targets.