A record-low 8.1% of consumers were hesitant to buy food products from Fukushima Prefecture due to concerns over the impact of the 2011 nuclear disaster in the prefecture, according to a recent poll conducted by the Consumer Affairs Agency.
The agency analyzed the latest poll results and concluded that the figure is a reflection of consumer confidence in radioactivity testing to ensure safety and fading harmful rumors about food products, a decade after Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant suffered meltdowns.
The agency has conducted the poll every six months to a year since February 2013 to grasp the situation and take measures to minimize the impact of harmful rumors.
The 14th poll was conducted online in January, and 5,176 people in their 20s to 60s living in four disaster-stricken prefectures, including Fukushima, and large metropolitan areas such as Tokyo, Aichi and Osaka prefectures, where agricultural, forestry and marine products from the disaster-affected areas are available, responded. The results were released Feb. 26.
The percentage of respondents who said they were hesitant to buy food produced in Fukushima Prefecture because of concerns over radioactive materials decreased by 2.6 percentage points from last year's poll, dipping below 10% for the first time.
In the first poll, 19.4% expressed concerns.
Those who said they would pause before buying food products from Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate prefectures dipped to 6.1%, and the figure stood at 2.2% for items from the entire Tohoku region. Both numbers were record lows.
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