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Consumers’ attitudes, especially their attitudes towards health and taste, are significant in understanding and predicting dietary behaviour. In this research, Health and Taste Attitude Scales (HTAS) developed by Roininen et al. in 1999 for measuring health and taste attitudes of consumers, were applied in Serbia. The purpose of this paper is to find out whether the same sub-scales can be identified as in HTAS applications abroad, to test the predictive validity of HTAS and to investigate respondents’ health and taste attitudes in the context of their socio-demographic characteristics.

Primary data were gathered by means of focus groups and a survey – structured personal interviews by using a questionnaire. The research was conducted in July 2013 with 300 respondents participating.

The same sub-scales were identified in Serbian consumer research as in HTAS applications abroad. Generally, all the Health sub-scales are useful predictors of consumption of several types of food perceived as healthy, while the Taste sub-scales (except Pleasure) are good predictors of consumption of both, food considered as tasty and food considered as not tasty. Out of socio-demographic variables, only age showed statistically significant correlations to some of the Taste sub-scales.

Several recommendations for companies operating on the domestic food market were given in this paper.

The first application of HTAS in Serbia, generally characterized by scarce food consumer research, was shown in this paper. It is also the first application of HTAS in a Southern European country.

Previous studies indicate that both health and taste are important factors in the food choice process. Owing to the industrialization of food processing and biotechnological innovations on the one hand and a series of food scandals on the other, consumers are now more concerned about modern food hazards. The present study aims to investigate whether consumers with varying degrees of modern tainted foods worries and gender difference will show variations in the Health and Taste Attitude Scales (HTAS).

Of a total of 1,500 questionnaires sent out, 533 were found useful for this empirical analysis. The measurement items of the Health and Taste Attitude Scale (HTAS) were scored as the data input to test for the impacts of modern tainted foods worries and gender by ANOVA tests.

The results of this study conducted in Taiwan indicate that those people identified in the ‘‘high modern tainted foods worries’’ group have more interests in health in foods but the ‘‘low modern tainted foods worries’’ group have more interests in taste in foods. In addition, though more concerned about health in foods, female consumers are also more interested in sweet foods.

Some suggestions for food marketers and food policy makers are also provided in this study.

To the best knowledge of this researcher, this study represents one of the first attempts to investigate the health and taste attitudes in Taiwan and tests for the impacts of modern tainted foods worries and gender.

Purpose: Consumer acceptance is considered the most important factor in functional food success and is given top priority in new product development. This study focussed on finding factors that influence consumer perceptions about active food and the pattern of active food consumption. This chapter aims to provide a deeper understanding of taste trading based on a consumer decision-making framework.

Research Methodology: Cross-sectional consumer data were collected by floating G-Doc containing the questionnaire which was supposed to be answered by people according to their behaviours, preferences, knowledge regarding functional foods etc. It contained questions about their income, gender, preference towards functional foods, factors affecting decision-making while purchasing functional foods etc.

Results of the Study: The findings suggest that the consumers' attitude towards functional foods was mainly influenced by the quality and suitability of the product. Purchase intent was found based on age, literacy of population, income and health benefits of active foods. Awareness of functional foods and their price significantly affected the purchase of functional foods. Most people were willing to spend more on functional foods in the future regardless of the taste and provided high quality and product suitability.

This paper explores the reasons why consumers choose wine over other alcoholic beverages, with a focus upon the beliefs held by consumers towards the behaviour of wine drinking. The research findings show that attitudes are somewhat more predictive of the intention to drink wine than perceived social pressure. Nevertheless, both attitudinal and normative elements are required to adequately explain wine consumption. Despite the fact that the issue of health figured prominently amongst the salient beliefs identified in the qualitative phase of the research, the subsequent quantitative research found that drinking wine because of its purported health benefits was not a significant attitudinal or behavioural factor. Drinking wine because it provides ‘a variety of tastes and flavours’ and because it ‘goes well with food’ was found to be significantly more important. The results suggest that efforts to actively promote awareness of the health benefits of wine drinking may have limited value.

The purpose of this paper is to explore young consumers’ attitudes toward novel organic food products by analyzing their acceptability and perception.

A mixed method approach was applied to conceptualize (sensory profiling of organic bakery and confectionery products) and then to evaluate young consumer’s willingness to buy (consumer survey) innovative products: ten variants of rolls and ten variants of shortbread cookies made of certified raw materials originating from bio-farming, enriched with a combination of fresh and dried fruits and vegetables. Product recipes were free of saccharose, sweeteners and chemical pulverizing agents. To evaluate consumer orientation toward novel organic products, 200 consumers from Poland (Warmia and Mazury region) were surveyed regarding their hedonic opinion about these concepts. A Likert-type scale was used in the consumer survey to assess the perception and declared willingness to buy the evaluated products.

Research results demonstrate that the young consumers had ambivalent or negative attitudes to sensory attributes of many variants of the organic bakery and confectionery products. This could be explained by the taste of most of the products, which appeared unacceptable to consumers. It has been concluded that the choice of organic foods by young consumers is not strictly related to the concern over their health nor to the awareness of health-related attributes of these food products. Taste turned out to be the key factor affecting consumer attitudes toward organic foods and driving their willingness to buy these products.

Despite the constant development of research in the area of the organic food market, the current scientific findings still have some cognitive gaps that concern attitudes and expectations of consumers, especially of young consumers, toward new ecological products. This study contributed to the young consumers’ behavior knowledge by analyzing their attitudes toward novel organic bakery and confectionery prototypes produced manually. The empirical findings from this study also have practical potential for organic food market applications. Information of this type is useful in understanding and predicting the demand for certain products, which helps managers develop effective strategies.

In recent times, the market for food trucks has been growing due to customers seeking convenient food options. However, not many studies have been carried out to understand why consumers choose to visit food trucks. Hence, the purpose of this study is to understand consumers' intentions to visit food trucks through the theoretical lenses of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and the theory of consumption values (TCV).

A purposive sampling method was utilised to gather data from 203 food truck customers through a cross-sectional online survey. Data were evaluated using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

The findings indicate that attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control have a significant positive impact on consumers' intentions to visit food trucks. Furthermore, taste value, health value, emotional value and epistemic value have a significant positive effect on attitudes. However, neither price value nor interaction value has a significant impact on attitudes.

This study represents a pioneering effort in combining the theoretical perspectives of the TPB and the TCV to investigate consumers' intentions to visit food trucks. The resulting integrated model provides a more comprehensive understanding of the factors that influence consumers' decisions to visit food trucks. The findings are expected to furnish food truck vendors with valuable insights on crafting efficient marketing and operational tactics to retain their existing customer base and entice new consumers.

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.

The study employs a choice-based conjoint technique, which addresses how consumers make trade-offs across a set of product attributes.

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.

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.

Purpose – This study explores U.S. consumer attitudes toward organic foods in order to demonstrate that multiple and meaningful segments can be identified based on attitudes and beliefs rather than demographics and that a more targeted marketing strategy could likely create a better fit with consumer wants and needs.

Methodology – Q-methodology is employed, in part to demonstrate its usefulness for segmentation purposes.

Findings – Six meaningful segments of consumers are generated based on attitudes toward organic foods: Health Enthusiasts, Organic Idealists, Hoban's Hogwashers, Unengaged Shoppers, Bargain Shoppers, and Cynical/Distrustfuls. These groups vary in attitudes toward organic food, and despite conventional wisdom, exhibit a reasonable match between attitude and purchase behavior. Segments are also generated for viewpoints toward conventionally grown foods, revealing that consumers do not simply hold binary positions (pro-organic, anticonventional), but instead consider each food type on its respective merits. Positioning and media choice strategies are considered for each organic food segment.

Originality – This chapter distinguishes between different types of consumers of organic food by using Q-methodology, with the result being a rich, detailed description of the values and preferences of each group. With these descriptions, the organic food industry can better align its marketing efforts with the priorities of individual consumer groups, rather than their simplistic demographics as are commonly utilized. The chapter also offers a unique perspective on the attitude–behavior gap, revealing that when the attitude is understood in greater detail, the gap appears to disappear.

Using consumption value theory, this study aims to examine the impact of tourists’ perceived consumption value dimensions of tea beverages offered by Hong Kong (HK)-style cafés, including taste value, price value, health value and emotional value, on tourists’ memorable experience (ME), satisfaction and revisit intention.

Using an online survey, this study collected 225 usable data from tourists who had experience in visiting HK-style cafés. Partial least squares–structural equation modelling was used to examine the importance of tourists’ value dimensions, including taste value, price value, health value and emotional value, on tourists’ ME, satisfaction and revisit intention.

The results revealed that taste value, price value, health value and emotional value are significant predictors of tourists’ ME in HK-style cafés, which in turn drive their satisfaction and revisit intention.

This study focusses on a single context: HK-style cafés. Future research may enhance the generalisability of the findings by replicating the model in other countries with diverse cultures.

Tourism marketers may strengthen tourists’ ME, satisfaction and revisit intention by promoting tea beverages as well as HK-style cafés. Tourism marketers are recommended to communicate taste value, price value, health value and emotional value of HK-style tea beverages, which in turn encourages tourists to learn about the features of tea beverages. Subsequently, it drives tourists’ ME and satisfaction, thereby strengthening their intention to revisit.

This study contributes to the tourism marketing literature by providing an understanding of the role of tea beverage value in driving tourists’ ME, satisfaction and revisit intention. By empirically testing a research model, this study confirms that specific consumption value elements of tea beverages, namely, taste value, price value, health value and emotional value, are critical drivers in driving tourists’ ME, satisfaction and revisit intention.