What we do / Market studies / Exploring Consumer Attitudes to Food Safety in Malawi
Market study
Food safety only pays for a processor if enough people notice it and will pay for it. The Ireland-Malawi Agri-Food Systems Programme (IMAGRI) asked us how consumers, shops and restaurants in Malawi's three largest cities think about safe food, and what that means for businesses that invest in it.
We worked with a team from the University of Malawi in Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu. We talked to groups of men and women of different ages and incomes, and to supermarkets, hotels and small food sellers.
We also spent time inside households. A researcher spent a day with a family, visited the home and went along on the shopping trip, to watch the choices as they were made.
They judge food by smell, colour and appearance, and wash and cook it carefully at home. Invisible risks are less understood: many believed salt water or long boiling removes chemicals, and that a boiled egg is always safe.
When a safer option costs more, households buy the cheaper one and clean it harder. They rely on a vendor they know and on visible signs such as gloves, certificates and a clean counter.
Supermarkets and hotels run formal systems. Small shops rely on visible hygiene. Street sellers work with few resources. Households move between the three according to what they buy and for whom. Most vegetables are sold in open-air markets, and maize and cooking oil reach nearly every household.
We published the findings as the report Safe Enough to Eat. Its advice is to help each level improve within its means, to build high-value markets that pay for safety investment, and to make invisible risks visible.
The study shows direction, not proportions. So we are now carrying out quantitative research to measure them, and we expect to publish the results in the last quarter of 2026.
Safety has to be seen to be valued. Many risks are invisible, so people rely on what they can see, such as gloves, certificates and a clean counter. Making safety visible is how a business earns trust.
Price comes first. When a safer option costs more, households buy the cheaper one and clean it harder. That is why high-value markets matter: they can pay for the investment.
Meet each level where it is. Formal systems suit supermarkets and hotels. Small shops and street sellers need steps that fit their means.
Listening comes before counting. Spending time in homes and on shopping trips showed us the choices people make and why. The quantitative research now under way will tell us how common each one is.
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