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The purpose of this research is to explore the influence of the pandemic on manoeuvring consumption decisions towards goods and encouraging the trial of local food goods in a developing country, Jordan; primarily by taking an internal look into country image from a local perspective. Given the lack of studies analysing the impact of crises on consumption decisions, this research highlights the hidden benefits of the pandemic in shifting the perceptions of local food goods among Jordanian consumers.

This study adopts an exploratory approach to obtain rich, descriptive data to aid in the understanding of the shift in country image perceptions after the COVID-19 crisis and associated influences on purchase intentions. Using a qualitative open-ended approach eliminates the boundaries of closed-end methods of experimental research. Due to the nature of the phenomena being explored in this research, this study adopts the approach of responsive interviews with 26 participants.

Findings indicate that participants’ perceptions of country image and local goods and their consumption changed responding to COVID-19 for different reasons, creating new norms and perceptions of country image and local food goods. The findings precisely indicate a shift from negative to positive perceptions of country image and local food goods due to the pandemic. Results reveal that there are inconspicuous benefits associated with the role of the pandemic in shifting perceptions of country image and local food goods in Jordan.

Consumers’ perceptions and consumption decisions continue reciprocally to respond to and reflect on the COVID-19 crisis. Adjusting to the new normal is now the focus of research to understand the variance in consumption decisions across the world, including in emerging markets such as Jordan. Results also extend research on cue theory, as crisis seems to have a moderating role in the extent of influence cue theory has on perceptions of goods.

Assisting local brands in improving their marketing strategies, by identifying the barriers that hinder the “desire to try” phase among Jordanian consumers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is unique and first of its kind, as it investigates perceptions of Jordanian consumers of their country’s image and whether the perceptual change in their country image would also stimulate a shift of perceptions in local food goods concerning the COVID-19 crisis. The results provide new insights into understanding consumer behaviour and preferences in crises; and the inconspicuous benefits that a crisis may have on local goods.

This study aims to explore how certain consumer characteristics (dieting status, health motives and food values) together with products carrying ambivalent health and taste cues (light foods, convenience foods, “functional candies”) shape whether and why health and taste attributes are perceived as inclusive (“healthy is tasty” and “unhealthy is untasty”) or exclusive (“healthy is untasty” and “unhealthy is tasty”).

A qualitative methodology not yet applied in examining consumers’ healthiness and tastiness perceptions of food was employed. It included gathering three separate data sets through both personal and group interviews (N = 40).

Consumers’ dieting status, health motives and food values shape the perception of inclusivity and exclusivity of health and taste of light, convenience and candy products. Second, there are multiple sources for these perceptions including product type, ingredients, level of processing and marketing cues. These factors interact to produce a unique consumer understanding of the relationship between health and taste for each single food product.

To ensure optimal consumer response, food companies and health educators need to understand how different target groups form their inclusive/exclusive perceptions of health and taste for various foods.

The majority of pre-existing food consumption research supports imply that a good taste and a high degree of healthiness are incompatible with each other. The findings challenge this view. It appears that it is the “unhealthy is untasty” and “healthy is tasty” perceptions that predominate in certain consumer groups. A novel conceptual framework for understanding the ambivalence of health and taste perceptions in food consumption is offered.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between risk characteristics, risk perception and future travel intention in the context of food safety risk.

This research used a structured questionnaire administered to a convenience sample of 715 participants. By using structural equation modelling method, a travel intention framework was successfully developed to test the impact of characteristics of food safety risk on perception of risk, and subsequently on travel intention. In addition, the framework was also tested and compared with different demographic groups.

The research confirms that the characteristics of risk have impact on the two dimensions of perception of risk, namely, likelihood of occurrence and consequence of occurrence in turn travel intention. Furthermore, characteristics of risk affect demographic groups differently.

The finding of this study offers insight into the distinct effects between the two dimensions, namely, likelihood and consequence of risk perception and each dimension consists of different loss components and has different effect on travel intention.

The framework provides insight to the government and travel industry that risk perception is a paramount issue for travellers when making destination decision. As such, the government and travel industry should take action to prevent the occurrence of food risk and to reduce the severity consequence of the risk when it occurs.

This research is one of the few studies generating new insights into perception of food safety risk in international tourism from the social science and marketing perspective.

Food waste has strong ecological, economical and social implications. Focusing on waste perceptions and behavior according to food types, this paper aims to propose that vice or virtue food categories determine cognitive and behavioral reactions to food waste. The authors examine the psychological mechanism underlying the differential waste perceptions and behavior.

The authors conduct five studies, including a field study, to provide converging evidence that supports this theorization.

This study demonstrates that consumers feel that trashing vice food is more wasteful than trashing virtue food. They are less willing to waste vice food and more comfortable with wasting virtue food. Consequently, they waste more virtue than vice foods. The authors demonstrate that counterfactual thinking explains the food type effect on waste.

This paper provides a conceptual framework for understanding and explaining food waste perceptions and behavior across vice and virtue food categories. This paper identifies counterfactual thinking as underpinning the psychology of waste perceptions and behaviors. The findings extend the growing research on subconscious and unintentional food waste, the food consumption literature and the psychology of waste literature.

The differential waste perceptions and behavior provide several implications for waste interventions and consumer education. By expanding theories of consumer food waste, this paper provides material for educational campaigns aimed at reducing waste and improving healthful eating.

Consumers can benefit from understanding their tendency to avoid wasting vice foods but will waste virtue foods with little compunction. Waste aversion may be a reason people consume vice foods beyond satiation. Consumers may overconsume vice foods because they are so acutely averse to wasting them, with detrimental consequences for health and welfare.

To reduce consumer food waste, one must gain deeper insights into factors shaping consumer food waste perceptions and behavior. Food waste studies have been increasing but have overlooked the power of consumer perceptions in driving food waste consequences. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no prior study has examined how food type affects waste perceptions and behavior. This research fills this gap.

When scientific information is unclear about the health benefits of foods, people choose to react in different ways. Using a posttest-only control group design, the authors tested how balanced and nonfactual information available on YouTube influences public perception of organic foods.

The authors randomly assigned participants (N = 640) from a southern US land grant university to watch one video: balanced news, nonfactual news, or control. All participants indicated changes in perception about organic foods immediately after the video. The authors analyzed the data using one-way and two-way ANOVA.

The nonfactual news video had the most influence on public perception of organic foods. Results confirmed that the effect of nonfactual information was more for individuals with preexisting beliefs consistent with the message communicated and individuals exposed to average to high levels of health and diet news.

The authors recommend regulatory changes in marketing strategies related to organic foods in the US that encourage balanced information about organic foods rather than promoting credence attributes of organic foods using persuasive information.

The authors findings suggest that, when scientific information about the health benefits of foods is unclear, communication activities should aim to increase healthy skepticism considering the audience's preexisting beliefs and frequency of health and diet news exposure.

Locally derived foods from the lens of restaurant settings play an important source of tourist attraction. Surprisingly, research into this sector is quite scarce. The aim of the paper is to develop and empirically examine a conceptual framework on tourist’s preferences in selecting local foods. The framework includes tourists’ satisfaction, quality of food, tourist’s perception, purchase intention and purchase behavior among tourist’s selection for local foods.

The research is designed as quantitative in nature. A sum of 280 usable questionnaires was used from 300 distributed instruments by using convenient sampling techniques.

The results show that the relationship of tourist satisfaction and behavior is mediated by purchase intention, whereas tourist’s satisfaction and perception have a positive and significant impact on the intention of purchasing local foods. There is also a significant relationship between tourist’s satisfaction and perceived quality toward the tourist’s perception of local foods. Moreover, a significant relationship exists between tourist’s intentions and tourist’s purchase behavior.

The study derived the purchase behavior dimensions of local foods by the tourists through literature and verified the conceptual model through empirical testing. Based on these findings, managers of local food restaurants require maximizing the purchase behavior of the visitors by considering satisfaction and perceived quality. In summation, they also should consider perception and behavioral intention of tourists. The limitation of this research relates to the sample, where data were collected from the major city of a tourist-friendly country. Future research could investigate the perceived value and gender variance as moderating variables in and between purchase intention and purchase behavior.

Managers and policymakers may use the outcome of this research as a guideline to understand the depth of tourist’s behavior. By identifying the antecedents of the behavioral factors may assist the managers to strengthen the restaurant’s competitive position within the industry. Finally, policymakers may use the research to assess tourists’ perceptions of local foods acceptability in promoting the nation’s culture to other parts of the world.

This work adds to tourism behavior research by exploring the effect of satisfaction, perceived quality, perception and intention on behaviors associated with local foods purchase behavior. In particular, the study highlights the relationships between tourist’s perception, perceived quality of local foods and satisfaction of local foods to measure tourist’s behavior through purchase intention for local foods from the perspective of restaurant settings, which have received less research attention.

This study evaluated risk perception as a critical factor influencing the intention to visit ethnic restaurants; in addition, the role of food safety information in reducing risk perception toward ethnic food was examined. Finally, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of protection motivation on risk perception.

A survey was performed with 506 respondents. Data analyses including descriptive statistics, simple linear regression structural equational modeling and an independent t-test were conducted.

The results highlighted the negative influence of risk perception toward ethnic food consumption on the intention to visit ethnic restaurants. The results indicated that providing food safety information on menus reduces risk perception. Protection motivation theory explained consumers’ risk perception toward ethnic food. In particular, vulnerability (the chance of occurrence), self-efficacy (certainty in one’s ability to carry out a recommended preventive behavior) and response-efficacy (belief that an individual can handle a threat effectively) affected consumers’ risk perception toward ethnic food.

The results provide effective strategies for reducing risk perception, such as a provision of food safety information on the ethnic menu or an open kitchen, which produces a safer food image for consumers.

A scarcity of research has been offered to explain the predictors influencing consumers’ risk perception toward ethnic food and the methods whereby risk perception can be reduced. Thus, this study makes an important contribution to the hospitality literature by exploring risk-perception-related variables.

This paper examines pre- and post-production water treatment practices among food processors and investigates factors, especially managerial perceptions of environmental pressure that encourage or preclude either process.

To consider potential spillover effects across two water-treatment practices, the bivariate probit model based on random utility theory is used to investigate how practices are influenced by managerial perceptions of environmental pressure and measured by manager perceptions on water costs, water availability, water safety and quality.

Results indicate that firms with a managerial perception that water costs are low are less likely to conduct both pre- and post-production water treatment practices, while the perception of high water quality has a negative effect on water treatment prior to use. This study also confirms the positive correlation of the pre- and post-water treatment practices among food processors. Practices also change with firm features including production scope, scale, target market and expected future sales growth.

This study provides unique insights about water treatment practices and generates knowledge to enhance food safety and environmental sanitation in the food industry. Results are helpful to design and provide additional training and educational programs that target the enhancement of environmental and water quality awareness among food company managers and modify food safety policy instruments and environmental regulations pertaining to surface water resources.

Research exploring water-treatment practices in the food industry has been limited. Using a representative sample of food processors in the city of Shanghai, this study contributes to the literature on the examination of internal drivers of voluntary environmental management (VEM) with a focus on managerial perceptions of environmental pressure, establishes the correlation between pre- and post-production water treatment practices and identifies and quantifies the effects of relevant factors.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate risk dimensions affecting food risk perceptions and to develop effective risk communication strategies based on their risk perceptions dimensions. The reason for writing this paper is that applying single risk communication strategy for public often fails because food risks are systemic risks and public perceptions toward them consist of multiple dimensions. Launching an effective risk communication need to investigate the perception dimensions of the target audience.

A total of 2,673 parents of 3-14-year-old children from the rural area of Sichuan province in China were chosen as target audience. Based on the survey conducted about parents’ food risk perceptions, this study used factor-cluster analysis method to segment parents to sub-clusters with significantly different risk perception dimensions. Parents’ representative demographic characteristics within each cluster were further identified through cross-tabs analysis with χ² tests.

All the parents could be segmented into four sub-clusters, namely, sensitive parents, dependent parents, familiarity-oriented parents and institutional distrust parents, according to their risk perception difference on five dimensions. A series of risk communication strategies were specifically designed for each cluster based on their risk perception features as well as demographic characteristics.

The insight derived from this study described a deeper image of public risk perceptions and provided suggestions for risk communication launchers to pinpoint the risk perception as well as perception dimensions of the target audience and accordingly develop effective risk communication strategies.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether the perceptions of cleanliness and organization of the point of sale, hygiene and training of those who serve the public (service) and healthiness of the products, constitute a base for the perception of the quality of food sold in the street. Studies about development of street food trade have gained relevance in academic debate because of its social and economic significance. Usually, aspects related to sanitary issues are presented, and the factors that influence consumer perception regarding quality of food consumed are less explored. This was the focus of this work. The relationships among possible predecessors – attendance, cleanliness, organization and healthiness – were tested, all acting together, influencing the variable perception of product quality. Competitive models were tested because of theoretical divergences regarding the relationship between quality and healthiness, not yet totally clear in the literature.

A quantitative survey was carried out in the city of Diadema (SP, Brazil), getting 603 respondents, with data and theoretical models analyzed by structural equation modeling.

Results indicated that organization variable is not significant regarding perception of product quality, while attendance and healthiness directly affect this perception. On the other hand, cleanliness influences perceived healthiness and this, in turn, reinforces perception of product quality.

The focus of street food traders should be on clerk cleanliness and politeness (characteristics related to the service) that end up influencing the perception that the consumer develops regarding healthiness (characteristic related to product quality).

Usually research studies on this theme include only aspects related to sanitary and safety issues, and those which focus on consumer perception of food quality cover conventional outlets such as bars and restaurants. There are few ones performed as in this study that analyze street food consumer behavior regarding his/her perception of quality, cleanliness, care received, among others.