Abstract:
In modern Sri Lankan context safety of the food has become a major role in the society because
there were many food poisoning cases. In most of the time vegetables in the market have
contaminated with many synthetic materials like pesticides. Since the vegetables are growing
only in certain areas of the country, vegetable have to transport directly to the main economic
centers and then distributed for other retailers. In the present context, customers are highly
concern on purchasing safe vegetables, if they are available in the market. Anyhow, the
purchasing intension of vegetable is varied in each customer depending on many factors.
Therefore, this research was conducted to analyze the factors affecting on purchasing intention
of safe vegetables in Piliyandala city area by using theory of planned behavior and give
suggestions to the interested parties such as vegetable vendors in the area to make better
performances. Piliyandala city area was selected as study location concerning its location as
semi urbanized area belongs to the Kesbewa DS division and representation of multi ethnic
groups. The research model is consisting with dependent variable, purchasing intention and four
independent variables namely health consciousness, attitude towards safe vegetables, subjective
norms and perceived behavioral control. Data collection has been done by five-point Likert scale
questionnaires from 110 residents in Piliyandala and analyzed by using SPSS 25.0 software. The
main conclusions have taken from descriptive, frequency, regression and factor analysis.
However, the findings indicated that out of four factors health consciousness, subjective norms
and perceived behavioral control have shown a positive impact on purchasing intention towards
safe vegetables. Perceived behavioral control showed the highest impact towards purchasing
intention. This study is significant to guide the farmers, producers and retailers to implement
better marketing approaches focus on consumer behavior as well as consumers to persuade
towards purchasing safe vegetables. Policy makers including government should focus on aware
the people and promote safety concern in vegetables in the market since food safety is critical
topic in the society now a days.
