Rutgers Spinach report: Part II

From Rutgers Food Policy Institute:

Most Americans first learned about the spinach recall from reports on TV Nearly three-quarters (71%) of those aware of the recall reported that they first learned about it
through television broadcasts (see Figure 2). Eight percent reported that they first heard about the recall from another person. The remainder said that they first learned about the recall from the radio, or through the newspaper or Internet.



The spinach recall was on Americans’ agenda of things to talk about While only a small portion of the population first heard about the recall from someone else, almost everyone who was aware of the spinach recall did eventually speak about it with others. More than eight-in-ten (84%) respondents who were aware of the recall said they talked with others about it. Nearly one-third (31%) reported they spoke with others about the recall “frequently” or “occasionally.” One-quarter (25%) reported they had discussed the recall “a few times” and 29% said they did so “once or twice.” Only 16% reported having never discussed the spinach recall with someone else. Most Americans were interested in stories about the recall, but passive consumers of information about it Consistent with the finding that most Americans reported having first heard about the recall through reports on television, the majority of Americans appear to have been somewhat passive consumers of information on the topic. Overall, most people (59%) indicated that they had been interested in stories about the spinach recall. But, when asked about active types of information seeking, only 44% of Americans agreed that they had “closely followed news stories about the spinach recall,” 23% agreed that they had “watched the news specifically to hear about the recall,” and 12% agreed that they had “searched on the Internet to find more information about the spinach recall.”



It is not surprising, perhaps, that those who said that they ate fresh spinach before the recall were significantly more interested in and active seekers of information about the recall. Significantly more of those who ate spinach (73%) were interested in recall stories than those who did not eat spinach before the recall (44%; χ2 (1, 1034) = 25.72, p<0.001). More than half (52%) of those who ate fresh spinach before the recall said that they had closely followed the news stories about the recall vs. only one-third (36%) of those who had not eaten spinach (χ2 (1, 1019) = 92.30, p<0.001). Significantly more of those who ate spinach before the recall (14%) than those who had not eaten spinach (9%) reported that they had searched the Internet to find information about the recall (χ2 (1, 1037) = 7.07, p<0.01). However, there were no significant differences in the percentage of people who reported having watched the news to specifically hear about the recall. Americans were not sure about the types of spinach contaminated While it is clear that the majority of Americans had heard about the recall, and reported they had heard a fair amount about it, their knowledge of many of the details of the recall was
significantly less robust. One of the key messages during the spinach recall was that consumers should not eat any fresh spinach, whether sold loose or in a bag. However, neither frozen nor canned spinach were suspected of having been contaminated and were considered safe for consumers to eat. To test the extent to which consumers paid attention to these messages, respondents who were aware of the recall were asked a series of true/false questions about whether each of four types of spinach had been recalled (see Table 3).