Utilitarian Food Research Articles

The Influence of Recycled Packaging for Food Products on Consumer Behavior

ABSTRACTExtensive efforts by both government and private sectors to make the use of recycled packaging in food products more prevalent have not always been successful, partly due to a limited understanding of consumers' complex perceptions towards this practice. In this research, we explore whether recycled food product packaging enhances the appeal of food products, as well as the boundary condition and underlying mechanism of this effect. Using three experimental studies, we find that marketing efforts highlighting the use of recycled packaging can be beneficial, but only for utilitarian food products, not for hedonic ones. We also identify the warm‐glow effect as a key mediating mechanism. This study uniquely contributes to the literature by not only examining the differential effects of recycled packaging but also identifying the warm‐glow effect as a key mediating mechanism. Our findings contribute a more nuanced perspective to the literature on sustainable consumption and provide practical implications for enhancing the effectiveness of recycled food product packaging.

Consumer brand and category switching behaviors after food safety incidents: Factors and mechanisms

The excessive mold found in Three Squirrels' nuts and the clenbuterol abuse of Shuanghui are two infamous food safety incidents in China. We adopted push-pull-mooring theory to conduct a model and examined the factors influencing consumer short-term or long-term brand-switching or category-switching behaviors following the two food safety incidents. We employed multinomial logistic regression and structural equation modeling as tools to analyze 1027 valid questionnaires. The results, for the first time, revealed that perceived risk, alternative selectivity, alternative attractiveness, controllability attribution, and habits were key push, pull and mooring factors influencing Chinese consumers’ brand and category switching from food brands under food safety crisis, and most importantly, that their influential paths differed greatly under the two food safety incidents, suggesting a different influential mechanism across two product categories (i.e., utilitarian food and hedonic food). These findings throw light on the predictors and mechanisms that affect consumer brand and category switching from food brands under food safety crisis and help associated food businesses develop more targeted and powerful crisis management and public relations strategies.

A brief review on utility of nuts consumption

It is generally accepted that the nutrients found in tree nuts are to blame for their potential impact on human health. Nuts are a wellspring of admission of fiber, and dietary fiber is related to a diminished event of heftiness and cardiovascular sicknesses. The intriguing possibility that consuming nuts may protect human health has been the subject of worldwide research. Thusly, nuts are generally advanced as sound. The number of studies suggesting a link between nuts and a lower risk of important chronic diseases has continued to rise over the past few decades. The accessible logical proof of the medical advantages connected with nut utilization affects cardiovascular and persistent infection avoidance, mitigating and oxidative pressure decrease, as well as utilitarian food properties.

A matter of alignment? Effects of product types and environmental claim framing on consumer evaluation of sustainable foods

AbstractDespite a growing interest in environmentally sustainable practices, consumers continue to prioritize taste, quality, and price above environmental concerns when purchasing food products. Previous studies have shown that environmental claims or messages may not uniformly enhance product perceptions. This research examines strategic approaches to framing substantively identical environmental benefit claims differently across product types to enhance consumers' sensory and quality evaluations as well as their willingness‐to‐pay for sustainable foods. Results from two experiments show that consumers' assessments of sustainable utilitarian and hedonic food products can be enhanced if environmental claims are strategically framed in accordance with the nature of product types. The alignment of utilitarian food products with an environment‐focus frame that emphasizes environmental benefits and hedonic food products with a self‐focus frame that stresses the personal relevance of these protections and benefits can enhance consumers' experienced tastiness, quality evaluations, and willingness‐to‐pay for sustainable foods.

Framed or Unframed? An empirical study of the impact of food brand logo frame on consumers’ food preferences

Despite the widespread use of food brand logo frame in food brand logo cues, little is known about how food brand logo frame influences consumers’ food preferences. Through five studies, this article explores the food brand logo frame on consumers’ food preferences for different food types. For utilitarian foods, framed (vs unframed) food brand logos result in higher (lower) consumers’ food preferences (Study 1), and this framing effect is driven by the psychological mechanism of food safety associations (Study 2); for hedonic foods, unframed (vs framed) food brand logos result in higher (lower) consumers’ food preferences (Study 3), and this framing effect is driven by the psychological mechanism of food confinement associations (Study 4). Furthermore, this framing effect was also observed among UK consumers (Study 5). The findings contribute to the literature of brand logo and frame effect, as well as to the literature of food association, and bear important implications regarding food brand logo frame design for food marketers when developing food brand logo programs.

Review Paper for Nutrients in food

The diet exerts a substantial influence on chronic illnesses and overall well-being. Addressing food-related behaviors will enable individuals to manage these conditions effectively. Enhancing health by making changes to one's diet through modification and fortification, introducing novel food options, and including essential nutrients. Enriched and utilitarian food products, supplements, and health-promoting substances Fortified meals and functional foods are designed to augment the nutritional requirements of individuals. Some meals, like morning cereals, are regularly enriched with vitamins and minerals, and there is a growing variety of foods that are enhanced with specific functions and claimed to provide health benefits. Nutraceuticals, also known as nutriceuticals, are naturally occurring bioactive chemicals that possess qualities that promote health or prevent diseases. The study investigated the correlation between nutrition and its influence on human well-being. It provided evidence that diet plays a significant role as an environmental component in the development of many chronic illnesses. Quantifying the precise magnitude of this impact is challenging, however, there has been a notable 35% decrease in the occurrence of Cancer among different age groups in the United States. The states have been proposed to be attainable using "feasible dietary methods". The potential to produce significant societal and economic benefits via the identification and utilization of health-promoting elements in foods is evident. Spectrum Population Capable The extent to which one can profit from this study will hinge upon how The data is utilized by scientists, the food business, and policy officials.

It Leaves a Bad Taste in Your Mouth: How Corporate Social Irresponsibility Impacts Consumption Experiences

AbstractAcross three experiments, we examined the impact of both corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate social irresponsibility (CSIR) on consumer taste evaluations. The current research demonstrates that CSIR information consistently negatively impacts perceptions of taste across both hedonic and utilitarian food products. Specifically, it translates to perceptions of inferior taste in food products, an effect mediated by both guilt and quality perceptions. Notably, the majority of CSR research focuses on attitudes toward the firm versus actual product experiences. Accordingly, firms should consider how information related to CSR/CSIR can impact not only attitudes toward the firm but the consumption experiences with specific products.

Hunger effects on option quality for hedonic and utilitarian food products

Multiple studies have examined the extent to which consumers’ hunger levels predict their food choices and preference patterns. These investigations often involve making binary choices between hedonic foods (e.g., ice cream) that primarily serve to provide sensory pleasure, and utilitarian foods (e.g., bread) that mainly fulfill functional purposes. However, most consumers entering a grocery store are not restricted to solely selecting either hedonic or utilitarian foods. Rather, they typically choose both hedonic and utilitarian food options. Moreover, little is known about the effects of hunger on consumers’ option quality (i.e., the degree of match between actual food choices and stated preferences) or their cognitive performance in food contexts. To address these gaps, the current study explored (1) whether experimentally induced hunger (vs. satiation) influences the option quality of consumers’ chosen food items; (2) whether this potential interplay is contingent on the food category (hedonic vs. utilitarian); and (3) whether hungry (vs. satiated) consumers’ performance may differ on cognitively challenging tasks. The results revealed that hunger did not lead to a generalized decrease in consumers’ option quality. However, option quality was inferior for utilitarian—but not hedonic—foods among hungry consumers, whereas no such differences were found for satiated consumers. Hungry (vs. satiated) consumers also performed significantly worse on cognitively demanding tasks, underscoring the far-reaching consequences of hunger on consumers’ decision-making. Further research should test the generalizability of these results in ecologically valid settings, such as in actual supermarkets.

The effects of puffery in food packaging on consumers' responses via persuasion knowledge: role of food type and picture type

PurposeFood packaging pictures are one of the most important extrinsic cues for consumers to evaluate food products before purchasing. Over the past decades, marketers have used exaggerated pictures to attract consumers' attention, enhance their attitude toward a product and increase their purchase intention. This study examined the interplay of “puff-up” product picture, food type and picture type in influencing consumers' responses via persuasion knowledge.Design/methodology/approachThe research comprises two 2 × 2 factorial experiments. Study 1 tested the interaction effect of puffery (high vs low) and food type (utilitarian vs. hedonic) on consumers' responses using two fictitious brands of prepared food, whereas Study 2 tested the interaction effect of puffery (high vs. low) and picture type (ingredients vs. cooked food) using a fictitious brand of Chinese delicacy.FindingsResults demonstrated that the degree of picture puffery did not influence consumers' responses to utilitarian food and ingredient image. Conversely, consumers were sensitive to puffery when they see hedonic food and cooked-food image. Our findings also suggested that consumers' persuasion knowledge mediates the relationship between puffery and their responses.Practical implicationsThe presented findings facilitate marketers to know consumers' attitude about food puffery pictures.Originality/valueThis research is one of the first efforts to empirically explore the influences of persuasion knowledge on food puffery pictures. The importance of this work is underscored by the fact that a growing number of visual exaggerations are adopted on food packaging.

The shape effect: Round shapes increase consumers' preference for hedonic foods

AbstractDespite being a fundamental food feature, the effect of food shapes has been underexplored. This study demonstrates that giving hedonic foods a round shape increases their desirability, choice probability, and consumption. However, this effect does not apply to utilitarian foods. Such asymmetric effects are attributed to the positive affect elicited by a round shape and not to the food's shape typicality, food knowledge, vividness, or fragility. The positive affect provides affective information and influences consumers' judgments and decisions. Moreover, the effectiveness of giving hedonic foods a round shape is attenuated by consumers' health motivations; that is, the effect holds only for those with low health motivation. Applying statistical methods to data from seven independent studies provided consistent evidence that supports our hypotheses, thereby advancing knowledge of the shape effect, susceptibility of hedonic products, and the affect‐as‐information framework, while also revealing how food shapes affect food consumption.

Nanotechnology and Their Applications in Science and Technology - Review

Nanotechnology is the investigation of tiny designs, having size of 0.1 to 100 nm. Nano medication is a generally new field of science and innovation. Brief clarification of different sorts of drug nano frameworks is given. Nanotechnology is serving to significantly improve, even alter, numerous innovation and industry areas: data innovation, energy, natural science, medication, country security, sanitation, and transportation, among numerous others. The present nanotechnology tackles current advancement in science, physical science, materials science, and biotechnology to make novel materials that have interesting properties on the grounds that their designs are resolved on the nanometer scale. Ongoing advances in Nano science and nanotechnology plan new and inventive applications in the food business. Nanotechnology presented to be a productive strategy in numerous fields, especially the food business and the space of utilitarian food varieties. However just like the condition with the development of any original food handling innovation, food bundling material, or food fixing, extra investigations are expected to exhibit the possible advantages of nanotechnologies and designed nanomaterial intended for use in food varieties without antagonistic wellbeing impacts. Nano emulsions show various benefits over customary emulsions because of the little beads size they contain: high optical lucidity, phenomenal actual consistency against gravitational parcel and drop aggregation, and further developed bio-availability of typified materials, which make them appropriate for food applications.

Varying the Number of FOP Warnings on Hedonic and Utilitarian Food Products: Evidence from Chile

ABSTRACTFOP food-labeling systems seek to inform on a product`s healthy/unhealthy state and signal a product`s healthiness level. Research in this area has focused primarily on exploring the healthy/unhealthy dimension, leaving the effect of FOP schemes on the perception of healthiness under-researched. The objective of this study is to evaluate how an increase or decrease in the number of warning signs in the packaging of food products affects the healthiness perception of the consumer and the subsequent purchase intention. This examination is developed by comparing utilitarian and utilitarian food products as a means to examine whether FOP labeling effects are moderated by prior buying motivations. Results show that a different number of warnings is correctly perceived and used by consumers. Results also reveal that utilitarian products are more affected by the presence of one warning and in the case of these products these differences disappear when the number of warnings increases.

Korean mothers’ food choice behavioral intent for children: An examination of the interaction effects of food type, household income, and healthism

This study identifies how economic factors, like household income, and psychological factors, like healthism, affect the food choice behavioral intent of mothers in Korea. We designed a 2 (type of food: sweet snack as hedonic food vs. milk as utilitarian food) × 2 (household income: low vs. high) × 2 (healthism: low vs. high) stimulus. The participants were Korean mothers raising children in Seoul, Korea. Participants were exposed to an advertisement for milk as the utilitarian food and a sweet snack as the hedonic food and then asked for favorability and purchase intention toward each type of food and about participants’ household income and concerns regarding health. Our study found high-income mothers were not influenced by food type, but low-income mothers were. Lower-income mothers were more willing to purchase utilitarian foods than hedonic foods. High-healthism mothers did not favor hedonic foods, regardless of household income, while low-healthism, high-income mothers favored hedonic foods more than low-healthism, low-income mothers. In contrast, low-healthism mothers did not favor utilitarian foods, regardless of their household income, while high-healthism, low-income mothers favored utilitarian foods more than high-healthism, high-income mothers. The results of our study may assist the government and marketers to understand how healthism and household income affect food choice behavioral intent.

Comparing the Effectiveness of Information Framing Strategy on Utilitarian and Hedonic Food Product Packaging

The increasing adoption of framing strategy among food marketers and advertisers generates inquiries about the effectiveness of the strategy. Product messages with different framing strategy are expected to stimulate different consumer responses. This research investigates the difference of consumer attitude and purchase intention towards the framed product when consumers are exposed to food labels with different types of food product (hedonic vs utilitarian) using different framing strategy (positive vs negative). A lab experimental design was prepared involving 160 participants. Chocolate was examined to represent hedonic product while packaged milk was used as utilitarian product. Data were analyzed using ANOVA and multiple linear regression. Findings suggested that the effectiveness of framing strategy was moderated by product type. Positive framing was found to be more effective for hedonic food products, while for utilitarian food product, it was more favorable to adopt negative framing.

Flexible flexibility! Food categorization flexibility and utilitarian preference

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to propose that high categorization flexibility’s positive influence on hedonic or affect-laden choice is attenuated by conservation and nutrition mind-sets. Further, categorization flexibility can also promote utilitarian or cognitively superior preference and may have a role in steering customers toward healthier dietary choices.Design/methodology/approachTwo experimental studies document that the pro-utilitarian impact of food categorization flexibility can be facilitated by priming conservation mind-set and nutrition mind-sets.FindingsThe results of this study show that conservation and nutrition mind-sets not only mitigate the earlier-demonstrated facilitative influence of food categorization flexibility on hedonic food preference, but also facilitate utilitarian food preference.Originality/valueThe current study provides the first evidence that food categorization flexibility can facilitate both hedonic and utilitarian preferences. The findings contribute to literature streams on categorization flexibility, resource-scarcity and hedonic versus utilitarian consumption. In addition, the findings offer specific prescriptions about encouraging customers to choose utilitarian and relatively more healthful food options, which in turn will improve the general welfare of the society.

Impact of self-health awareness and perceived product benefits on purchase intentions for hedonic and utilitarian foods with nutrition claims

Making benefit cues explicitly available to consumers can mitigate the impacts of added product attributes, such as nutrition claims, from which consumers often infer negative meaning. Yet, food products also vary in the benefits that consumers value most; they regard taste as most important for hedonic foods, but performance as pertinent for utilitarian foods. This article presents three studies that examine how making perceived product benefits explicit affects consumers’ purchase intentions toward hedonic and utilitarian food products that feature nutrition claims. Self-health awareness may moderate this effect (Study 1), which also depends on the prime, whether of the product’s underlying goal (hedonic vs. utilitarian) (Study 2) or of consumers’ own health motivations (Study 3). The results show that participants with high primed health motivation purchase hedonic food products with nutrition claims only if the product benefit is explicit. For utilitarian food products, the negative effect of the nutrition claim can be mitigated by making the perceived benefit explicit but only among participants with low self-health awareness. Priming thus can facilitate healthier food choices, though its outcomes depend on the type of food and self-health awareness.

Time orientation and construal level: effects on eating and exercising behaviour and preferences

AbstractEating and exercising behaviour are both characterized by immediate and future consequences. Consequently, consideration of these consequences (i.e. time orientation) predicts eating and exercising behaviour. We investigate whether construal level acts as an underlying mechanism of these relations. Students (N = 101) completed measures of consideration of immediate and future consequences (i.e. CFC‐food and CFC‐exercise), construal level, eating and exercising behaviour and preferences. For self‐reported eating and exercising behaviour, only direct effects of consideration of immediate and future consequences were found. For eating preferences, however, there was evidence of an indirect effect through construal level. A stronger tendency to consider future consequences led to a stronger preference for utilitarian (as compared with hedonic) food products through a more abstract construal level. All in all, construal level partially explains the differential relations between consideration of immediate and future consequences and eating and exercising behaviour and preferences.

Exploring consumer preferences for hedonic and utilitarian food attributes

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the relative importance of four main attributes of food products for consumer’s choice. These are price, taste, environmental friendliness and healthfulness, tested across hedonic and utilitarian food products (milk and ice-cream). The weighting of attributes involved in food choices is a complex phenomenon, as consumers must consider contradictory requirements when making their choices. Consumers’ decision-making processes might also be influenced by food category. Some food products are mostly consumed for pleasure, whereas others are consumed because of their nutritional value. Design/methodology/approach – The study employs a choice-based conjoint technique, which addresses how consumers make trade-offs across a set of product attributes. Findings – The results indicate that price and taste attributes are rated as the most important for both hedonic and utilitarian food products. However, when the authors group consumers according to their product preferences, the relative importance of product attributes changes. Specifically, the importance of environmental friendliness and healthfulness is much higher among the health-conscious and environmentally conscious segments than for other segments. Originality/value – To the knowledge, this is the first study comparing the importance of this combination of product attributes (price, taste, calorie content and eco-label) across hedonic and utilitarian foods in a choice-based conjoint setting. Moreover, a new way of grouping consumers according to their ethical-value profiles enables the authors to create a psychographic description of these segments, and to relate it to their food attribute preferences.

Impact of limited cognitive capacity and feelings of guilt and excuse on the endowment effects for hedonic and utilitarian types of foods

Consumer food choices may partly be explained by the endowment effect. Here, we focus on the influence of limited cognitive capacity on loss aversion related to food choices. We also investigate the effects of anticipated feelings on food choices. Experiments with 1614 pupils of secondary schools show that both cognitive constraint and anticipated feelings increases the overall endowment effect and that the impact of limited cognition is stronger for hedonic than for utilitarian food products.

Endowment effects for hedonic and utilitarian food products

Part of consumer food habits may be explained by reference effects, status quo bias and loss aversion, but little research has focused on these processes in food choices. This paper is a first attempt at understanding the impact of these effects in consumer decision making with respect to hedonic versus utilitarian food products. In one between-subjects experiment running for a 2-year period 554 pupils and students from different cities in the Netherlands were provided with either a hedonic food product or a utilitarian food product and were given the opportunity to exchange their endowment for the alternative good. The outcomes show that more participants preferred to keep their hedonic good than their utilitarian good in endowment indicating a relatively strong endowment effect for hedonic food products compared to utilitarian food products. The results suggest that status quo bias for hedonic food products may lead to subsequent relatively unhealthy food choices.