Comparison of elicitation methods for moral and affective beliefs in the theory of planned behaviour

Development of a methodology to study typicity of PDO wines with professionals of the wine sector

BACKGROUND

Today, many agricultural products claiming a link to their origin and typicity receive a warm welcome on the market. Nevertheless, the notion of typicity is blurred for consumers and needs to be objectified for communication purposes. This study aims at formalizing a methodology for studying typicity of terroirs, with PDO wines as an example, using a participatory approach with professionals of the wine sector from terroirs, using focus group and tasting. The vision of typicity of terroirs by professionals outside of these terroirs has been studied by a free word association task.

RESULTS

This study allowed a clear distinguishing of the typicity of the studied terroirs. Professionals from terroirs identified the global conceptual typicity of their terroirs using various factors, mainly soil, geography and grape variety, whereas professionals outside terroirs expressed their visions of terroirs by reputation or sensory characteristics of wines. Tasting results showed a discrimination of wines based on their typicity and highlighted descriptors involved in sensory perceptual typicity for each studied terroir.

CONCLUSIONS

Professionals from terroirs share a common vision of their typicity and identify more typicity factors than professionals outside terroirs. Sensory typicity has been highlighted for five of the six terroirs studied, according to the various descriptors. The study of two populations, from and outside terroirs, shows the gap between the typicities identified by professionals from terroirs and those perceived by professionals outside terroirs. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry.

Antecedents of Purchase Intention toward Organic Food in an Asian Emerging Market: A Study of Urban Vietnamese Consumers

This study aims to investigate some factors influencing purchase intention toward organic food among urban consumers in Vietnam, an Asian emerging economy. The extended Theory of Planned Behavior was used as theoretical framework for this study. In order to test the proposed model and hypotheses, a survey was conducted on a sample including 572 consumers in Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam. The findings of structural equation modeling indicated that modern self, traditional self, health consciousness, organic-label trust, and subjective norm were significant predictors of attitude toward buying organic food, while environmental concern was not significantly related to attitude. In addition, attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control toward organic food purchase were found to be positively related to purchase intention. The research findings were discussed and implications for marketers and policy makers were provided.

A qualitative study of Southern U.S. consumers' top of the mind beliefs about the safety of local beef

Following the Reasoned Action Approach, the aim of this study was to explore consumers' top-of-mind food safety beliefs about local beef. Beef consumers recruited from farmers' markets (N = 101) and grocery stores (N = 174) across the state of Alabama participated in face-to-face intercept surveys. The survey included closed- and open-ended questions designed to elicit consumers' food safety beliefs about local beef. Results indicate that beef safety was not a top-of-mind concern for a majority of participants, however of the total number of participants familiar with the term "local beef" (n = 168, 61%), a majority (n = 105, 63%) associated local beef with improved food safety. Content analysis of verbatim text revealed that consumers believed local beef was safer because they possess greater knowledge about the product and less shipping was involved. Respondents also believe that locally processed meat is derived from small-scale operations which provided the assurance that local beef is more likely to meet U.S. regulatory standards and therefore be safer. Consumers believe they have more oversight of local beef due to both their relationships with supply chain actors and proximity which also provided food safety assurances.

Identifying promising accessions of cherry tomato: a sensory strategy using consumers and chefs

BACKGROUND

An increased production of cherry and gourmet tomato cultivars that are harvested at advanced colour stages and sold at a higher price has been observed in the last 10 years. In this context, producers need information on the sensory characteristics of new cultivars and their perception by potential consumers. The aim of the present work was to obtain a sensory characterisation of nine cherry tomato cultivars produced under Brazilian organic cultivation conditions from a chef and consumer perspective. Nine organic cherry tomato genotypes were evaluated by ten chefs using an open-ended question and by 110 consumers using a check-all-that-apply question.

RESULTS

Both methodologies provided similar information on the sensory characteristics of the cherry tomato accessions. The superimposed representation of the samples in a multiple factor analysis was similar for consumers' and chefs' descriptions (RV coefficient 0.728), although they used different methodologies. According to both panels, cherry tomatoes were sorted into five groups of samples with similar sensory characteristics.

CONCLUSION

Results from the present work may provide information to help organic producers in the selection of the most promising cultivars for cultivation, taking into account consumers' and chefs' perceptions, as well as in the design of communication and marketing strategies.