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The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of consumer ethnocentrism, country image, functional food image, subjective knowledge and health consciousness in predicting purchase intention of imported functional foods using the theory of planned behavior.

A total of 361 Chinese consumers from 20 to 60 year old who have purchased Korean functional foods participated in this study using an online survey. Structural equation modeling was performed to examine the hypotheses.

Consumer ethnocentrism had a negative effect on the intention to purchase Korean functional food, but the image of Korean functional foods, subjective knowledge and health consciousness positively affected intention to purchase Korean functional foods. Country image had a positive effect on the image of Korean functional foods. Attitude and perceived behavioral control had a positive effect on the intention to purchase Korean functional foods.

This study combined social and personal factors to explain Chinese consumer intention to purchase imported Korean functional foods.

This paper aims to explore the socio-cultural meanings of functional foods for Tunisian consumers and to understand how these meanings shape their preferences and practices in the particular context of a Middle-East and North African (MENA) region.

A constructivist perspective based on multi-qualitative methods was designed allowing data collection in a natural setting through focus groups interviews, individual in-depth interviews and projective techniques among Tunisian consumers.

Findings show the complexity and importance of conscious and unconscious non-health-related socio-cultural factors in the construction and acceptance of functional foods by the Tunisian consumer. Common sense knowledge, social environment and tradition shape the constructions and practices of functional foods. These factors may act as a shortcut to compensate for unhealthy behaviour and as a social marker to reflect trendiness and identity.

The findings are specific to the Tunisian setting and may be not transferable to other settings.

The role of information is central in functional food acceptance. Communication on health effects should consider not only the formal nutritional health benefit but also lay knowledge.

The findings of this research contribute in the government’s understanding of Tunisian’s constructions of health and well-being by suggesting that besides health motives, non-health-related factors such as lay knowledge, social influences and conspicuous consumption play an important role in functional foods choice.

This paper contributes to extend functional foods literature by exploring the complex interconnected conscious and unconscious socio-cultural constructions behind functional food choice. It contributes also to the understanding of the food consumer behaviour in the specific cultural context of the Arab-Muslim MENA region, an under investigated setting.

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.

With multiple theoretical traditions, diverse topical landscape and rapid regulatory advancements galvanising the ongoing discourse, the emergent marketing scholarship on healthy and unhealthy food and beverages (F&B) has become exhaustive, fragmented and almost non-navigable. Accordingly, this study aims to synthesise and trace two decades of research focused on healthy and unhealthy F&B marketing.

This study conducts a bibliometric analysis of papers published between 2000 and 2020. The data was retrieved from Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus, yielding 338 papers for final analysis. Using VOSviewer software and the Biblioshiny package, the authors performed a detailed bibliometric analysis comprising performance analysis and science mapping.

The study delineated the contribution, theoretical and thematic structure of healthy and unhealthy F&B marketing scholarship. The authors also mapped the evolution trajectory of the thematic structure, which helped us contemplate the research gaps.

By delving deeper into the “who”, “where”, “how”, “what” and “when” of healthy and unhealthy F&B marketing, the study enhances the current understandings and future developments for both theorists and practitioners. However, the selection of literature is confined to peer-reviewed papers available in WoS and Scopus.

The findings delineate the existing scholarship which could guide F&B marketers and policymakers towards designing consumer-centric marketing/policy interventions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to perform a bibliometric analysis of healthy and unhealthy F&B marketing, likely to provide valuable guidelines for future scholars, policymakers and practitioners.

Psychological factors, such as body image dissatisfaction and the negative feelings associated with it may be related to the adoption of unhealthy eating behaviours. Also, body image dissatisfaction may lower the likelihood of engaging in long-term healthy eating habits and in the level of attention paid to the quality of the food consumed. As a result, body image may be related to consumers’ choice to purchase and consume health-enhancing food products. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A pilot study of a small sample of Italian yogurt consumers was employed to explore if there is a relationship between respondents’ level of body image dissatisfaction and the number of health-enhancing yogurt choices. The data were collected by means of a virtual-shelf technique and were analysed using a negative binomial regression.

Results indicate that body image dissatisfaction is inversely related to the number of yogurt packages with health-enhancing features chosen from the virtual shelf. Also, respondents who read the nutrition label and those with more knowledge regarding leading functional yogurt brands, selected a higher number of functional yogurts from the virtual shelf compared, especially among women.

The results indicate that body image dissatisfaction is inversely related to the number of yogurt packages with health-enhancing features chosen from the virtual shelf. Also, respondents who read the nutrition label and those with more knowledge regarding leading health-enhancing yogurt brands selected a higher number of health-enhancing yogurts options from the virtual shelf compared to others, especially among women.

The relationship between body image dissatisfaction and health-enhancing food choices has not been investigated in the consumer science and marketing literature. Additionally, this is one of the few papers that use a virtual shelf as a data-collection method.

The purpose of this paper is to test the impact of symbolic and functional incongruity on brand hate. According to self-congruity theory, symbolic and functional congruence are a critical phenomenon in consumer buying decisions. Therefore, the present study develops a theoretical framework based on self-congruity theory to examine the key determinants of brand hate.

Data were collected only in fast-food chain franchises in the capital city territory of Pakistan. Therefore, it is hard to generalize the findings of this research for customers from different cultural backgrounds.

The results of the study reveal that symbolic and functional incongruence are the primary factors responsible for brand hate among Pakistani fast-food customers. Customers carefully consider both self-image and product attributes when purchasing products.

The research uses the cross-sectional method, which limits the findings’ usefulness in other sectors.

The current research helps policymakers understand the key determinants of brand hate, showing that symbolic incongruence is the primary antecedent. Therefore, policymakers and corporate leaders should consider that Pakistan is an Islamic country where consumer choices of food are not only derived from food quality, food hygiene and service quality, but also the symbolic image (i.e. halal food) is a vital determinant of consumption.

This study contributes to the literature by discussing the above issue and presenting quantitative data. This research extends the literature by testing and validating a conceptual model that includes two types of congruence (symbolic and functional) to study brand hate. The proposed conceptual model provides a novel, theoretical, self-congruity point of view on brand hate.

This study has two main purposes. First, the effects of health anxiety and perceived social value on the intention to consume functional food were examined. Second, the role of health knowledge levels in these relationships was identified.

The sample consisted of 271 restaurant consumers on the European side of Istanbul between August and October 2021. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the research model.

Restaurant consumers revealed that health anxiety and perceived social value positively affect functional food consumption intentions. Moreover, health knowledge levels have a negative moderating effect on the relationship between health anxiety and functional food consumption intentions.

Thanks to the findings of this study, the roles of health anxiety, perceived social value and health knowledge in functional food consumption were determined, thus filling a vital literature gap.

This study matches destination brand components with motives and identifies those components that are most important for the consumer during various stages of the decision process. This study also aims to classify various functional and symbolic brand components. The findings take the customers' point‐of‐view in identifying those descriptors that affect consumer choice preference and create destination loyalty.

The research is exploratory. Through a detailed literature review, destination brand components are identified, simplified and then classified as symbolic or functional. They are also classified by motive. The review is followed by a quantitative study that uses open‐ended questions to find the relationship between destination brand components and the stage of decision making. This study also presents a conceptual model with taxonomy of brand components.

Functional brand components seem to play a major role in a consumer's description of place brands during the various decision making stages. This finding highlights the importance of stressing functional components in the destination's branding strategy.

This study is the first of its type and can serve as a platform for future research, practically helping destinations create more effective communication.

Yoghurt is most popular and more acceptable throughout the world because of its general positive image among consumers because of its diverse nutritional and therapeutic properties and can be the most suitable probiotic carrier. Key factors for consumer’s inclination towards functional foods are increased awareness for healthy foods because of health deterioration resulting from busy lifestyles, growing healthcare cost and the aspiration for an improved quality life in later years. Yoghurt is still not consumed in certain parts of the world because of a lack of a cultural tradition of consuming yogurt and further people are not aware of the health benefits associated with yogurt consumption. In this study an attempt has been to project probiotic yoghurt as a functional food in the current era of self-care and complementary medicine.

Attempt has been made to review the literature on the biochemical activities of yoghurt cultures and their behavior in association with diverse probiotic cultures. Both review and research papers related to biochemical activities and functional properties of yoghurt cultures in association with probiotics and their health benefits published in diverse journals under Pub Med and Science Direct have been considered. Keywords used for data search included functional foods, yoghurt, probiotic, health benefits, etc.

Functional properties of yoghurt can be further enhanced with fortification of minerals and vitamins or inclusion of probiotic cultures. Diversity in biochemical behavior yoghurt cultures in association with different probiotic cultures has been reported. Conjugated application of probiotics with yoghurt cultures would result in a product with enhanced functional properties to extend health benefits.

Inclusion of probiotic cultures in yoghurt is suggested to extend the functional properties of normal yoghurt, thus providing necessary nutrients, improving health and preventing or reducing nutrition-related diseases. Regular intake of probiotic yoghurt is suggested for healthy lifestyles, as it will help in retaining their health and reduce the potentially long-term risk of disease. Food industries can have profit-driven business by projecting the probiotic yoghurt as a functional food.