Food Welfare Research Articles

An interdisciplinary marketing call into food design thinking to create innovative, healthy, and pleasurable food experiences

AbstractThe evolving landscape of food innovation demands that food manufacturers and stakeholders develop solutions that are novel, health-conscious, enjoyable, and sustainable, thereby enhancing food well-being (Block et al., 2011). This research proposes an interdisciplinary framework within the Food Design Thinking (FDT) process that integrates insights, methodologies, and perspectives from marketing and related business disciplines. It merges concepts from various business fields through a marketing and Food Well-Being (FWB) lens to expand the FDT framework and provide food manufacturers and stakeholders with tools and techniques to drive food innovations. The proposed conceptual framework contributes to the existing stages of FDT by emphasizing empathic emotions, emotional intelligence, and customer centricity in the Empathy stage; applying thematic thinking, experiential marketing, and experiential learning in the Visualization and Prototyping stage; and nurturing value co-creation, sharing, and open innovation in the Collaboration stage. Food manufacturers and stakeholders can leverage on these elements when developing, innovating, and creating new foods and food experiences that are meant to be healthy, pleasurable, and sustainable.

A food well-being index for sustainable eating behavior: Construction, validation, and implementation

Food well-being is critical in food marketing and sustainability, yet identifying its key sources and validating them against overall well-being remains challenging. Food marketers struggle to assess contributable factors in strategic decisions. Enhancing food well-being boosts consumer happiness and sustainability, but lacks a standardized evaluation method. This study introduces a novel Food Well-Being Index (FWBI) embedded in a nomological net using composite-based structural equation modeling to identify key sources of consumer happiness and compare performance across composite variables to promote healthier and more sustainable eating habits. Data from 401 participants are analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Participants provide ratings on 56 statements in the questionnaire, forming the basis for the indicators. An importance-performance matrix analysis is applied to capture important indicators and their performances.Results reveal individual and environmental well-being as the most salient drivers of food-related happiness, while social well-being demonstrates higher performance. These dimensions are underpinned by motivations for health and environmental responsibility and moderating food well-being to encourage sustainable consumption behaviors.This empirical study contributes to marketing research and practice in three ways. First, it calibrates the FWBI and identifies key indicators of food well-being. Second, it validates the relevance of food well-being and its impact on overall well-being. Third, it conducts an importance-performance matrix analysis, illustrating how managers in different sectors can use the FWBI to identify essential aspects in food production, design, and retailing, and improve products and services. Therefore, this study has significant implications for sustainability-oriented marketing strategies.

Beyond the Plate: Exploring the Experiential Values of Meal Sharing

Most research on hospitality management emphasizes the significance of customer experience, primarily focusing on the interactions between service providers and customers. However, the emergence of a sharing economy has extended service provision beyond traditional interactions. This study focuses on the importance of customer experience in the context of peer-to-peer (P2P) service transactions. It investigates the experiential values of meal sharing from the perspectives of both hosts and guests. Adopting a means-end chain approach, 25 semi-structured interviews using the soft laddering technique were conducted to analyze the narratives by detecting a variety of attributes, salient consequences, and ultimate personal values of the meal-sharing experiences and the hierarchical linkages among them. Although economic benefits are often cited as key factors in P2P services, this study revealed that social and food well-being and unique experiences are the primary experiential values of meal sharing.

Assessing Healthy Effects between Local Level Farmer’s Markets and Community-Supported Agriculture and Physical Well-Being at the State Level

Much change has occurred in the recent past around food systems at the local level. As interest continues to rise, we were curious to examine connections of local food systems and well-being in the context of the places they operate at the state level. Health is a central component of food well-being. In this article, we focus on physical well-being. We explore the connection between food systems, as represented by farmers markets (FMs), community-supported agriculture (CSAs), and physical well-being using state level data. To investigate these relationships, we conducted an ordinal logistic regression model analyzing 2016 data from the United States Department of Agriculture for the 50 states. The results of this study suggest that there is an inconclusive relationship at the state level. While local FMs and CSAs may increase physical well-being at the state level, we did not find this in our study. This finding adds to the body of literature where the majority of the studies in this area are case studies, ethnographies, and smaller studies using some regional data and small samples for local data. We believe that this conceptual work will allow for future empirical studies to build upon this study to conduct further empirical work examining regional state and local datasets for more conclusive findings.

Embracing Food Well-Being: Lessons from Chefs’ Caring Actions in the Fight Against Food Waste

This research analyzes world-renowned chefs’ fight against food waste as a manifestation of care, and aims to contribute to the understanding of food well-being (FWB). A qualitative study was conducted to analyze a large set of data triangulated from multiple sources (online streaming platforms, books, newspapers, magazines, websites, and social media channels). The findings reveal that, in proclaiming their responsibility to act against food waste, chefs challenge a wasteful food culture by weaving a web of care targeted at both supporting and training consumers and other stakeholders in the food supply chain. In doing so, the chefs leverage their position in society and within the food supply chain to connect multiple stakeholders in order to form a mutually beneficial and positive relationship with food. The results contribute to the conceptualization of FWB by highlighting the relational and dynamic nature of care in the FWB model. The study has policy implications for fighting food waste and enhancing FWB.

Promoting dietary self-efficacy through social support: An application to online weight-loss communities

An increase in the number of individuals trying to lose weight has enabled the development of online weight-loss support communities (Weight Watchers, Dukan, etc.). This research aims to study whether and how social support in these communities affects dietary self-efficacy to improve individuals’ food well-being. After an initial qualitative study with 25 community users, we formulated hypotheses and tested them in a quantitative study involving 335 users. The results show that social support contributes to dietary self-efficacy through two sequential mediators: identification with community members and motivation to comply with group norms. Our analyses also show that nutritional knowledge moderates the relationship between motivation to comply and dietary self-efficacy. The results of these two studies enrich the literature on online communities and allow us to suggest managerial recommendations for administrators of these communities and health professionals.

Food as an ingredient of well-being: from food and well-being to food well-being (FWB): a comparative study

Purpose The purpose of this study is threefold: firstly, to compare Pakistani and French consumers’ perceptions of well-being; secondly, to investigate how consumers in both countries relate to food; and thirdly, to assess whether they associate food with well-being. Design/methodology/approach Thirty participants (15 French and 15 Pakistani) between the ages of 24 and 35 were interviewed, using convenience and snow bowling sampling. Data triangulation was performed by combining three qualitative techniques, word association, photo-elicitation-based interviewing and open-ended questions to explore consumer perceptions of well-being, food and food well-being. Findings The study’s findings suggest that well-being is a broad concept in which food is an ingredient. Food and well-being share common elements, and food well-being can be defined as an individual’s psychological, physical, social and societal relationship with food ascribed by affordability and food literacy. Originality/value Pleasure, sharing and respect emerged as dimensions of food well-being that can be applied to transfigure consumer behaviour and reduce over-consumption, food waste and hunger. The dimensions of well-being and food were explored for both countries to understand their cultural nuances and determine the influence of food on well-being. This comparative analysis will help researchers understand consumers’ preferences for food in various aspects from two regions. This study can potentially contribute to scale development in food and well-being, which can help researchers measure the effects of food and well-being in different sectors of the economy, particularly in health care. The most aspiring aspect of the current research is the insights unveiled during interactions with research participants, which will help develop consumer baseline feelings.

Understanding the Chasm in the Diffusion of Online Food Benefit Ordering: A Service Ecosystem Approach

Although consumers used online grocery shopping more frequently to limit exposure to the COVID-19 virus during the pandemic, the participants of some federal nutrition assistance programs lacked the option to redeem their food benefits online. Some retailers were pilot-testing online food benefit ordering for the participants of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), one of the largest federal nutrition assistance programs in the United States. Linking the administrative data from a state WIC agency with the online ordering data from a grocery store chain, Study 1 empirically estimates the diffusion of online food benefit ordering among WIC participants, examines the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic-related factors, store strategies, and individual characteristics on the diffusion process, and unveils the existence of a diffusion chasm. Study 2 is a qualitative study in which WIC participants and store employees were interviewed. A service ecosystem framework is developed to explain how the chasm was formed and non-adoptions occurred. The retrospective examination of the diffusion chasm during the pandemic provides important recommendations regarding how to cross the chasm and improve WIC participants’ food well-being.

Deleterious food socialization: the negative impacts of the school environment on children's food well-being

PurposeFood socialization is the process of influences that forms children's eating habits and preferences, affecting their well-being for life. The authors' study explores what children and adolescents eat and how they obtain food at school, aiming to describe the deleterious food socialization phenomenon. The authors focused on understanding how deleterious food socialization influences children's food well-being within the school environment.Design/methodology/approachThe authors developed a mixed methodology using structured questionnaires with open and closed questions. The authors also took pictures of the schools' canteens, which allowed deepening the understanding of the school environment. The data collection occurred in two Brazilian private schools. The schools' teachers were responsible for collecting 388 useful questionnaires from students between 10 and 14 years old.FindingsThe authors found statistically significant differences between food originating at home and school. The amount of ultra-processed foods and beverages consumed at home and taken by children and adolescents from home to school is smaller than what they buy in the school canteen or get from their colleagues. Thus, the authors suggest that the school environment tends to be more harmful to infant feeding than the domestic one.Originality/valueThis study coins the concept of deleterious food socialization: situations or environments in which the food socialization process negatively impacts one's well-being. The authors' results illustrate the deleterious food socialization phenomenon in the school environment.

Creating Value for Sustainability by Transforming the Food Well-being Paradigm—Alternative New Food Product Development

Due to supply chain disruptions and sourcing uncertainties, multinational and large food manufacturers, retailers and suppliers are investing in New Food Product Development (NFPD) to add value and differentiate themselves from homogeneous food markets. However, for start-up food companies, especially in the NFPD field and within marketing research, this is difficult to do. This article’s aim is to analyse a microalgae milk pioneer and proteinalternative food technology company, its emerging NFPD, and its focused values, highlighting the differences with prior evolutions. A design science methodology and case study are applied. The findings show that technologydriven NFPD, with an integrative process, is promising. Moreover, a diversified and plant-based NFPD is encouraged as it creates sustainability values for consumer well-being by enhancing food technology and business performance. This study contributes to the NFPD literature and marketing research by improving current understandings of how to implement sustainability through technological breakthroughs and innovation in the NFPD process. In addition, it makes a methodological contribution by means of demonstrating how design science can help researchers think outside the box and create practical research to provide valuable solutions. Finally, this is the first study to use design science guidelines to create the NFPD value chain framework.

FOOD WELFARE OF REGIONAL RESIDENTS IN THE CONTEXT OF FOOD SECURITY

The most important component of the socio-economic development of each region is food security, which is one of the main directions for ensuring state security in the long term, a factor in maintaining national sovereignty. This article explores the main economic determinants of the food well-being of the population of the Vologda Oblast in the context of ensuring the food security of the region. The features of the structure of consumer expenditures of households in the Vologda Oblast are analyzed; studied the level and dynamics of consumption of food products by the inhabitants of the region; analyzed the income and territorial differentiation in the food market. As a result of the study, threats to ensure the food security of the region were identified: an unfavorable structure of consumer spending of the population of the region, a consistently high proportion of the population with incomes below the subsistence level, excessively high income differentiation, which causes noticeable differences in food consumption, deterioration in the quality of consumption of food products. It is concluded that it is necessary to overcome them by increasing the effectiveness of social policy aimed at expanding the purchasing power of income, improving the level and quality of life of the population.

Building relationships back into the food system: addressing food insecurity and food well-being

IntroductionFailures of the current food system sit at the core of the multitude of crises by being the root framework for both consumption choices and food production. Low-income households are disproportionately affected by these failures, impacting their food security and access to healthy and sustainable foods. Community-supported agriculture (CSA) is a bottom-up response towards an agri-food system transformation by providing an alternative food system based on agroecologically grown food that is sold locally and rooted in social values. Alongside other food citizenship movements and alternative food networks (AFN), CSAs are driven by the vision to develop a democratic, socially and economically just, and environmentally sustainable food system. Yet, low-income households are underrepresented in the CSA community.MethodOur paper presents findings from a co-produced intervention between the research team, four CSA farms based in Wales, United Kingdom and two food aid partners that sought to identify ways to improve the accessibility of CSA memberships for food-insecure households. Thirty-eight households received a weekly veg bag for a period of 2–4 months. We interviewed 16 household members at the project start and end of the harvest season. Building on the food well-being framework, we investigate impacts of a CSA membership on food-insecure households.ResultsWe found that CSA membership holistically improves food well-being, through strengthening producer-consumer relationships, increasing availability of healthy foods, helping people to care for their own and their families well-being, and building place-based food capability and literacy.DiscussionThis paper supports wider narratives that call for systematically prioritizing interventions that promote overall food well-being, which can lead to sustainable and just food systems with positive outcomes for financially excluded, food insecure households in localized AFNs.

Integrating health leadership and management perspectives: the MESH framework for culturally informed food design thinking and well-being promotion

PurposeThis study examines the social and cultural life of food innovations to inform food design thinking. The authors explore this through wellness regulating functional foods, foods scientifically modified for health...

The Impact of Mukbang Live Streaming Commerce on Consumers’ Overconsumption Behavior

Food live streaming shopping, which features a host eating and promoting the products to viewers, has become a new form of food marketing. In three studies, the authors examine the impact of content, influencer, and channel factors of mukbang live streaming on consumers’ perceived value and subsequent impulse purchase and food consumption behavior. Study 1, an experiment with 216 participants, reveals that a non–autonomous sensory meridian response (non-ASMR) video in which the mukbanger talks to viewers while eating regular (i.e., nonjunk) food is more influential in enhancing the video's perceived value and increasing impulse purchase and consumption. Study 2, with 624 participants, introduces influencer factors into the experiment. It shows that a credible and parasocial influencer significantly affects consumers’ perceived value, regardless of the food featured, resulting in impulse purchase and consumption. Study 3, which excludes the content factors fully mediated by influencer factors, examines the impact of the live streaming influencer and the shopping platform on perceived value and food well-being. A cross-sectional survey of 630 respondents finds that channel factors (food product offerings and convenience) and influencer factors (credibility and parasocial relationship) significantly enhance consumers’ perceived value, leading to impulse purchase and overconsumption. The authors provide theoretical and practical implications to enrich future research and responsible business practices in online food marketing.

Using social media to analyze consumers' attitude toward natural food products

PurposeThis paper examines user generated social media content bearing on consumers’ attitude and belief systems taking the domain of natural food product as illustrative case. This research sheds light on how consumers think and talk about natural food within the context of food well-being and health.Design/methodology/approachThe authors used a keyword-based approach to extract user generated content from Twitter and used both food as well-being and food as health frameworks for analysis of more than two million tweets.FindingsThe authors found that consumers mostly discuss food marketing and less frequently discuss food policy. Their results show that tweets regarding naturalness were significantly less frequent in food categories that feature naturalness to an extent, e.g. fruits and vegetables, compared to food categories dominated by technologies, processing and man-made innovation, such as proteins, seasonings and snacks.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper provides numerous implications and contributions to the literature on consumer behavior, marketing and public policy in the domain of natural food.Practical implicationsThe authors’ exploratory findings can be used to guide food system stakeholders, farmers and food processors to obtain insights into consumers' mindset on food products, novel concepts, systems and diets through social media analytics.Originality/valueThe authors’ results contribute to the literature on the use of social media in food marketing on understanding consumers' attitudes and beliefs toward natural food, food as the well-being literature and food as the health literature, by examining the way consumers think about natural (versus man-made) food using user generated content of Twitter, which has not been previously used.

Adaptation and Validation of the Well-Being Related to Food Questionnaire (Well-BFQ©) for the French-Speaking General Adult Population of Québec, Canada.

Efforts to develop effective strategies that improve dietary intake are needed; however, this improvement in diet quality must not be at the expense of well-being. The Well-Being related to Food Questionnaire (Well-BFQ©) is a tool that has been developed in France to comprehensively measure food well-being. Even though the same language is spoken in France and in Québec, cultural and linguistic differences are present, which supports the importance of adapting and validating this tool before its use in the Québec population. This study aimed to adapt and validate the Well-BFQ© for the French-speaking general adult population of Québec, Canada. The Well-BFQ© underwent a full linguistic adaptation process, including an expert panel adaptation step, a pretest among 30 French-speaking adult (18-65 years) Quebecers, and a final proofreading. The questionnaire was thereafter administered to 203 French-speaking adult Quebecers (49.3% females, MAGE = 34.9, SD = 13.5; 88.2% Caucasians; 54.2% with a university degree). The exploratory factor analysis showed a two-factor structure: (1) food well-being related to physical and psychological health (27 items) and (2) food well-being related to symbolic/pleasure of food (32 items). Internal consistency was adequate, with a Cronbach's α of 0.92 and 0.93, respectively, for the subscales, and 0.94 for the total scale. The total food well-being score, as well as the two subscale scores, were associated with psychological and eating-related variables in expected directions. Overall, the adapted version of the Well-BFQ© was found to be a valid instrument to measure food well-being in the French-speaking general adult population of Québec, Canada.

The place of ecology in agricultural development projects

The adoption of numerous agricultural development projects presupposes their assessment from the point of view of regulating its interaction with the natural environment. In the projects, the legislator's ideas and ideas about the combination of objective laws of nature and legal laws are visible, the importance of natural resources for the development of the agro-industrial complex is reflected, and the proper natural environment is perceived as a condition for further development of agriculture, and not as an object of protection. In general, preference is given to the impact of the natural environment on agriculture, rather than agriculture on the environment. Agricultural projects differ from environmental legislation aimed at ensuring environmental protection by the agro-industrial complex. In projects, as well as acts on the development of agriculture, priority is given to protecting the agro-industrial complex from the negative effects of the forces of nature, their use in the interests of improving food well-being, and not protecting the environment from pollution during agricultural production, although it becomes one of the most important pollutants of nature. Such a bias should be gradually corrected and agricultural development projects should include not only its dependence on nature, measures to overcome it, but also ways of conducting such agricultural production that will negatively affect the quality of the environment to a minimum.

Consumer psychology for food choices: a systematic review and research directions

PurposeConsumer food behavior has received considerable attention from marketers, researchers and regulators. With the rising obesity epidemic worldwide, the existing literature and previous reviews provide a limited understanding of consumers’ unhealthy food choices. To address this gap, this study aims to investigate consumer psychology for food choices in terms of mental processes and behavior.Design/methodology/approachThis systematic literature review analyzed 84 research papers accessed from the Web of Science database and selected high-quality marketing journals. A detailed analysis identified themes arranged in an organizing framework. Gaps, limitations, convergence and ambivalent findings were noted to derive future research directions.FindingsMajor themes in the literature include food marketers’ actions (food stimuli and context), environmental influence (micro and macro) and consumer psychology and personal factors, leading to food choice related decisions. The antecedents and consequences of food choice healthiness are summarized. Several studies converged on the benefits of health motivations and goals, food literacy and customizing meals bottom-up on food choice healthiness.Research limitations/implicationsThis review helps researchers gain state-of-the-art understanding on consumer psychology for food choices. It presents ambivalent and converging findings, gaps and limitations of extant research to inform researchers about issues that need to be addressed in the literature. This review presents future research questions to guide research on critical issues. This literature review contributes to marketing domain literature on consumer’s food well-being and overall well-being.Practical implicationsThis review offers actionable insights for food marketers, policymakers and nongovernmental organizations to drive consumer demand for healthier foods, focusing on food labeling, food environment, message framing and raising consumer awareness.Originality/valueThis review offers current understanding of consumer psychology for food choices focusing on healthiness, an aspect lacking in previous literature reviews.

Body perceptions, occupations, eating attitudes, and behaviors emerged during the pandemic: An exploratory cluster analysis of eaters profiles.

COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted people's mental and physical health. Three areas have been significantly impacted, among others: eating-related behaviors, occupational balance, and exposure to self-image due to videoconferencing. This study aims to explore and document eaters profiles that were reported during the pandemic in the general Canadian population using a holistic perspective, including body perceptions, attitudes, and eating behaviors (i.e., body image, behaviors, attitudes, and motivations regarding food), and occupations (i.e., physical activity and cooking). This cross-sectional study was conducted from May to September 2020. Two hundred and seventy-three Canada's residents, French speaking of 18 years of age and older, participated in an online survey on behaviors, attitudes, and motivations regarding food and eating as well as body image and occupations during the COVID-19 pandemic. A hierarchical cluster analysis was used to determine the eaters profiles. One-way ANOVA and Chi-square test were conducted to differentiate occupational characteristics between eaters profiles. Three distinctive profiles were found during the COVID-19 pandemic and could be placed on a continuum: the Congruent-driven eater is at the functional pole of the continuum, whereas the Incongruent-driven eater is at the dysfunctional pole of the eaters continuum. In the middle of the continuum, the Incongruent-perceptual eater is at a critical crossing point. Significant differences were reported between eaters profiles. The empirical results based on an eaters continuum conceptualization highlight the importance of understanding how people perceive their body to assess and promote food well-being.

The influence of sustainable design on food well-being

PurposeThis study investigates the effects of sustainable design on food policy, literacy, and socialisation to gauge consumers' satisfaction with the general design of food well-being (FWB).Design/methodology/approachUsing data from an online survey with 382 respondents, an empirical study applying composite-based structural equation modelling was conducted. Sustainable design for food socialisation was hypothesised to directly influence consumers' satisfaction with the general design of FWB, whereas food policy was assumed to have an emergent effect on food literacy. Gender was a control variable used to identify the heterogeneity of the effects.FindingsThe results demonstrated that sustainable design for food policy and food literacy positively influence food socialisation and affect consumers' satisfaction with the sustainable design for FWB. Additionally, women exhibited higher application of food knowledge and skills but less experience in FWB than men.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors knowledge, this study is the first to examine the emergent influence of food policy from a design perspective, with implications for industrial practitioners, policymakers, and academic research. This study also provides possible avenues for future sustainability and food product design research.