Does Taste Beat Food Safety? Evidence From the “Pêra Rocha” Case in Portugal

Nowadays, fresh fruits such as pears are differentiated by cultivars, origins, and appearances, as well as by companies' production and processing methods. We may now observe many denominations of origin, retailers,' and private labels in order to signal the differentiation to the consumers, who are often willing to pay large price premiums for products with specific attributes. In this article, we used an experimental auction to assess how information on quality attributes affects consumers' willingness to pay for different types of pears. The main results show that information on the products' characteristics related to food safety instantly influences consumers' willingness to pay. However, it appears that in the end, sensory intrinsic attributes related to taste beat the guarantee of food safety in driving the buying behaviour.     

Ethical product premiums: antecedents and extent of consumers' willingness to pay

Corporate social responsibility is now high on the strategic agendas of major retailers, as consumers demonstrate growing ethical awareness and concern. However, evidence regarding consumers' willingness to pay the price premiums often associated with ethical products is inconclusive. Studies have adopted various survey-based and experimental methods, focusing upon different product categories, each with particular ethical issues. This study included a Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET) exploratory investigation then a mail survey of 1000 consumers, indicating willingness to pay ethical premiums across 6 categories. Demographics proved to be poor predictors, although education explained some variance in willingness to pay. Ethical motivations, measured within the framework of the Decisional Balance Scale, proved stronger antecedents, providing guidelines for the communication of ethical attributes. Implications for retailers and opportunities for researchers are discussed.     

Effectiveness of price discounts and premium promotions

Although price discounts are by far the most common form of sales promotions employed by firms, the increasing use of premiums as a promotional strategy may imply that they are occupying a more important place in the promotional strategy. Since price discounts are quite costly and can reduce consumers' reference prices, undermine perception of quality, and hurt brand equity, it is crucial to know what type of promotion is the most preferred and valued by consumers. As the most recent works in the field have argued that the promotional benefit level is an important determinant of promotional effectiveness, this research reports the results of two experimental studies that investigated the interaction effect between promotional benefit level and promotion type across three levels of benefit (low, moderate, high). The results obtained suggest that at high benefit levels price discounts are more effective than premiums, while the opposite occurs at low levels. However, a similar evaluation of promotional tools was found at moderate benefit levels. The findings offer guidance to managers who might benefit from knowing what is the best strategy to promote their products and services. Our work also extends prior related research because, to this date, the effectiveness of price discounts and premiums across promotional benefit levels is an under‐researched issue. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Japanese consumers' use of extrinsic and intrinsic cues to mitigate risky food choices

The stated preference data were used to simulate and examine consumers' valuation of important extrinsic and intrinsic cues that are associated with risky foods. This analysis generates information on how consumers assess trade‐offs between price and selected intrinsic and extrinsic cues to determine their choice among alternative products. From this, optimum level of product quality attributes (i.e. intrinsic cues) and optimum price level for import products can be derived. Also, most effective sources of communicating food safety and risk management can be identified. The results show that the country origin cue is a key factor in understanding consumers' choice behaviour for food product that entails potential risk, which may suggest that consumers are using this information as a risk‐reduction strategy.     

Consumers' experiences of cold chain food packaging: A qualitative study among women in South Africa

Food packaging defines a product's uniqueness and strengthens consumers' relationship with a brand, in this way offering functional and experiential benefits. Although cold chain food is predicted to become even more important to consumers, consumers' experiences of the packaging of these products have been neglected in the literature. Thus, this exploratory study investigated these experiences of female participants in Potchefstroom, South Africa, using semi‐structured interviews and a projective technique assisted by ambiguous mock packaging. The findings reveal that despite marketers' intention to use packaging to lure consumers to purchase food products, participants also valued functionality and quality in cold chain food packaging. This study also identified a dislike of carton boxes and preference for plastic bottles for this kind of packaging, as well as further negative and positive characteristics for consideration by manufacturers. Although brand loyalty and price sensitivity were stronger considerations for some participants than the packaging, the latter seemed to play a pre‐eminent role in most participants' purchasing decisions. Therefore, it is recommended that when designing packaging for frozen and refrigerated foods, product developers and manufacturers should take into account consumers' experiences, requirements and needs of the packaging specific to cold chain food. Our research offers a starting point for designing cold chain food packaging that complies as closely as possible with consumers' expectations.     

Employing a Dichotomous Choice Model to Assess Willingness to Pay (WTP) for Organically Produced Products

Abstract

This study employs a dichotomous choice model to identify the socio-economic characteristics and attitudes that influence consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) a premium for organically produced products (OPP). Considering consumers' growing interest in quality and safety of food, the study attempts to identify consumers level of awareness on OPP, the intention to buy OPP and the WTP a higher price for OPP. Results highlight consumers awareness and intention, revealing useful information for the development of OPP market. The estimated maximum WTP indicates that consumers are willing to pay a substantial extra price to purchase OPP. Finally, WTP seems to be affected by certain consumer attitudes and socio-economic factors.     

The influence of product knowledge and brand name on internal price standards and confidence

This study examines the influence of product knowledge (after adjusting for subjects' brand-specific price knowledge) and brand image (via the brand name) on estimates of internal price standards (i.e., lowest, average, and highest price estimates) for two categories of electronic products. The impact of differing levels of product knowledge on consumers' confidence in their internal price estimates is also studied. The hypothesized effect of brand image on price estimates was greater for novice consumers than for experts for one of the two product categories. In addition, confidence in price estimates was found to be higher for experts than for novices for both product categories. These findings suggest that the relationship between product knowledge and brand image should be considered when studying the impact of external reference price on internal price standards. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Media effects on sustainable food consumption. How newspaper coverage relates to supermarket expenditures

Information provision is often considered to have an important role to play in changing consumers' choices. However, there is still no consensus on the mechanisms by which information might influence specific consumer expenditures, especially in relation to environmentally friendly food products. This paper explores whether the public debate on sustainable consumption in UK broadsheets and tabloids relates to observed consumers' expenditures. It does so by relating the number of published articles on selected sustainability topics to consumers' food expenditure in a leading UK supermarket from May 2009 to May 2011, using regression analysis. We selected only regular supermarket's shoppers who frequently buy the Sunday editions of the analyzed newspapers. Results indicate very sparse and inconsistent correlations suggesting that the impact of information is only minimally effective. The number of newspaper articles relates mainly to expenditures on organic, wholegrain and low salt products, possibly indicating a preference for healthy food. No consistent effects are observed when media target a change in more general food categories (e.g. a reduction in food of animal origin), although we observed some influence on purchases of fish. Finally, results indicate some correlations with purchases of meat for the readers of the Telegraph. In order to contextualize some of the results, we applied content analysis to a subsample of published articles on organic food. The qualitative approach shows that the framing of the news is important: change is positively related to information proposed uncritically; and negatively to information contextualized as a highly structured debate.     

Modelling the antecedents of consumers' willingness to pay for eco-labelled food products

The purpose of this paper is to model the antecedents of consumers' willingness to pay for eco-labelled food products. This research utilizes the Theory of Planned Behaviour to model the impact of consumers' awareness of eco-labels, environmental concerns, beliefs in the environmental ability of eco-labels, and presence of children on their willingness to pay for eco-labelled food products. This study uses structural equational modelling and PROCESS macros, to test the moderated mediation model on a sample of 333 online responses. Findings suggest the impact of consumers' environmental concerns and eco-label awareness on their willingness to pay for eco-labelled food products is partially mediated by consumers' belief in the environmental ability of these eco-labels. The relationship is further moderated by the presence of children living in the household. This study establishes the value of consumers' beliefs in the environmental ability of eco-labels and implies that communication strategies need to be carefully refined to provide consumers with more information about eco-labels and to emphasize the environmental ability of eco-labels utilized within the food industry as this can have an impact on their willingness to pay for these products, especially for consumers, who have children in the same household.     

Informationally Imperfect Consumer Markets: Empirical Findings and Policy Implications

A local consumer market is informationally imperfect and welfare-reducing to the extent that it is characterized by extensive price dispersion unexplained by utility-conferring properties of the product. This article reports a study to ascertain the extent of informational imperfections for 17 representative products in Syracuse, New York. Except for food, most products exhibited extensive and welfare-reducing price dispersion. The article also reports on a pilot investigation of consumers' perceptions, finding them to be mostly inaccurate (except for food) and typically underestimated. The study findings suggest that consumers are both victims of and contributors to informationally imperfect markets. The paper concludes with a discussion of policy implications.     

Effects of shared characteristics between eco-labels: A case for organic and local food

Food labels are created to reduce information asymmetry and help consumers make better food choices. However, the labels may have unanticipated effects, especially when they share common characteristics that may introduce confusion in making food choices. This study investigates how perceived relationships between different food labels may affect the price premiums of organic and local attributes for milk and fresh strawberries. Results show that the impacts of perception vary by product and label, and different food labels could positively affect price premiums on organic and local products. Results provide policy implications for better labeling and educational programs to reduce inadvertent confusion and improve consumer decision-making.     

Antecedents and Consequences of Consumers' Response to Health Information Complexity

This study develops and empirically tests a model for understanding food consumers' health information seeking behaviour. Data were collected from 504 food consumers using a nationally representative consumer panel. The obtained Lisrel results suggest that consumers' product-specific health information seeking is positively affected by general food involvement and by usability of product-specific health information. Moreover, product-specific health information seeking and product-specific health information complexity are both positively related to post-purchase health-related dissonance. This link between information complexity and post-purchase dissonance has implications for marketers of food products since our results suggest that consumers might avoid purchasing the same food item again if post-purchase dissonance is experienced.     

Can't Buy Me Green? A Review of Consumer Perceptions of and Behavior Toward the Price of Organic Food

Support for organic farming is a promising policy for improving sustainability in the food sector. Further consumer demand, however, is hindered by high prices. We review research from 2000 to 2014 on the role of perceived price, income, price knowledge, willingness to pay, and reactions to price changes on organic food. We find that price is the major perceived barrier to purchase. Income is only a partial explanatory factor and is superseded by psychographic variables. Willingness to pay a premium is around 30% (ranging from 0% to 105%) and depends on consumer segments and product category. Price knowledge is vague, and organic consumers' price sensitivity is relatively lower than that of occasional or nonorganic consumers. The results suggest that further market differentiation in terms of organic consumer segments and food categories is necessary. Furthermore, we discuss detailed implications for public policy and practice and present a future research agenda.     

Understanding consumers' online conversation practices in the context of convenience food

The area of convenience food has become an insightful context for studying consumption because it is full of tensions and contradictions. This context has attracted an ample amount of research on buying motivations, consumer attitudes and preferences. However, the practices of consuming convenience food have remained a rather unexplored area of research. The purpose of this study is to identify and dissect consumers' online conversation practices related to convenience food. Consequently, the study uses a practice theoretical approach to analyse consumers' online conversations about the topic. Three different categories and nine different practices within them are identified. The practices are further dissected to reveal their tension‐increasing and tension‐relieving characteristics. Finally, the article draws conclusions regarding practice theory and convenience food consumption.     

Convenience,Price, Product

Abstract

This study examines the factors motivating consumers' purchases of specialty food and beverage products via the Internet. While convenience is often cited as a motivating factor, price and product selection have also been identified. This study considered convenience in terms of time, space, and effort. It also identifies several specific sub-categories for price and products. Among respondents who had made a recent online purchase, convenience-related issues were most frequently cited as being relevant to the purchase decision. Product-related factors were important for nearly one-third of the respondents. Price was of relatively little importance.     

Cultural influences on new product adoption of affluent consumers in India

The purpose of the study was to explore how individual/personal and group-level factors influence Indian consumers' adoption of new food products. The results reflect the interdependence of consumers' individual views and beliefs with those of the group. Indian consumers' perceived characteristics of new foods and their innovativeness are key personal-level factors in impacting their new food purchase decisions. Reflecting collectivist tendencies, interpersonal communication sources and subjective norms at the group level are important mediators of Indian consumers' new food purchases. Marketing implications for food businesses are discussed.     

Consumer Attitudes Toward and Preferences for Food Standards of Identity

Abstract

Federal food standards of identity protect consumers from nutritional and economic fraud by establishing standardized names and characteristics for some products. Standards have been criticized for a variety of reasons, raising the possibility that standards may be harmful to the consumers' interests that they are designed to protect. The authors conducted focus groups to collect information on consumers' attitudes toward food standards and their perceived usefulness. Many participants believed that standards are useful and deemed standards to be more important for some types of products than others. Regulators can use the study findings to guide policy decisions on food standards.     

Consumers' willingness to buy products with environmental and ethical claims: the roles of social representations and social identity

This study investigates how social representations and consumers' identification with organic food consumers affects intentions to buy products that make environmental and ethical claims. For the purposes of the study, an online panel study was conducted on a representative sample of consumers (n = 1006) in the United Kingdom. The results demonstrate that consumers who are adherent to natural foods or technology and do not perceive food as a necessity are more willing to buy environmentally friendly and ethical products. There seems to be no relationship between perceptions of food as a source of enjoyment and intentions to buy sustainable products. Finally, social identification with the organic consumer is positively related with the intentions to buy products that make environmental and ethical claims. The current research demonstrates that both individual perceptions of food and consumers' perceptions of the social environment play an important role in promoting environmentally friendly and ethical behaviour.     

Consumer purchase intentions for green products: Mediating role of WTP and moderating effects of framing

This research examines the role of consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) in the purchase decision process for a green product and investigates the moderating effects of two types of framing: price and ecological message claim. Using an experimental design, 262 participants were assigned randomly to one of nine conditions (3 price × 3 ecological message frames). The results reveal a mediating effect of WTP on the relationship between consumers' perceptions and purchase intentions. Furthermore, a price framed in aggregate terms reinforces the positive effect of WTP on purchase intention. The mere presence of an ecological message claim also enhances the relation between WTP and purchase intentions. This research proposes ways marketers can promote their green products. The results encourage the use of ecological messages and frames of prices in an aggregate form to enhance consumers' purchase intentions through WTP.     

Optimal promotion planning for a product launch in the presence of word-of-mouth

Marketing managers concern that Word-of-Mouth (WOM) can affect the efficiency of sales promotion policy. Sales promotion might also amplify the strength of WOM which further complicates decision-making. In this study, we deploy an agent-based simulation optimization framework to find an efficient sales promotion plan in the presence of WOM for launching re-purchasable products. In this model, consumers' purchase decisions are influenced by price history, availability and satisfaction of the consumers, and positive/negative WOM. We show that taking WOM on board while determining the promotion plan can significantly increase the net present value. However, amplifying WOM might damage the firm's profit for some product categories.