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The purpose of this paper is to investigate food bank actors’ knowledge of food insecurity in Germany and in Italy, as well as interactions between food bank actors and food bank users. The study builds on a knowledge framework from an educational context and applies it to food banks.

The study uses a qualitative research approach. In all, 22 in-depth interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed through inductive qualitative content analysis.

German and Italian food bank actors interviewed had at least situational knowledge on food insecurity. Some actors of the Italian food bank also showed procedural knowledge. Interactions between food bank personnel and users were affected by feelings of gratitude, shame, anger and disappointment.

The study explores food bank personnel’s knowledge on food insecurity, which appears to be a knowledge gap, even though many prior studies were dedicated to food banks and food insecurity. The study contributes to knowledge systematization to provide best practice recommendations for volunteer-user interaction, and suggests how food bank managers and volunteers’ knowledge can be improved.

This work aims to investigate the current financial structure of Italian agri-food micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to understand how MSMEs face innovation challenges, which are also required to support sustainable development.

To reach the goal, an empirical longitudinal analysis is performed on a sample of Italian agri-food firms. In detail, to highlight the changes in the use of financial sources between 2013 and 2019, a descriptive ratio analysis is carried out on the data extracted by the AIDA database. In addition, statistical analyses were performed, including t-tests and U Mann–Whitney. Finally, a fixed-effects model is created to analyse the panel data. To ensure homogeneity, the sub-sectors of production and transformation are separately considered.

The financial structure analysis shows an increase in the equity percentage in the funding sources, attributable to an attempt to compensate for the reduction of banks' funding. However, even though this change has not compromised firms' profitability, the undercapitalisation of companies is still present. Therefore, more equity investments are required to support the innovation process.

The value of the present research is to highlight the choice of using new alternative financing sources instead of traditional banks' credit to implement sustainable and innovative development Italian agri-food sector (AFS). This choice is forced by reducing finance from banks and other financial institutions because of the credit crunch. This issue is even more relevant, considering that MSMEs have structural financial problems but have to fulfil the mission of pursuing innovation in the same way as large companies. Therefore, this paper expands the literature on agri-food, delving into an issue typical of MSMEs and combining agri-food with the need for innovation.

The purpose of this research is to trace the evolution of the claims used for advertising food products in Italian magazines, by analysing the content and structure of the claims, the target audiences and the elements that have the greatest influence on the presence of the claims in food advertising.

On the basis of the research conducted by Pratt and Pratt (1995), revised and adapted to the Italian food context, the authors designed a matrix of 1,316 advertisements, which were selected based on the analysis of 67,340 advertisements and using the reference to the food sector as a discriminator. The advertisements were extrapolated from a sample of six Italian magazines, so as to determine the extent to which the various demographic groups in Italy are exposed to print advertising for food, beverages and food supplements. The authors examined the frequency of the relevant advertising forms over a period of four years, from January 2014 to December 2017.

The results revealed the main types of claims used in the four-year period, as well as the statistically significant differences between the different magazine panels, as concerns the frequency and the types of messages. Moreover, a strong relationship between the number of advertisements in the magazines and the time of the year was also ascertained, as well as significant gender variations.

This study introduces the trends and dynamics of the Italian printed advertising for food to the relevant scientific literature. The results yielded by this research have added further implications and contributions to the existing studies, as concerns claim diffusion based on type, gender and seasonality, and the authors also provide important insights to various socio-economical stakeholders.

This study aims to frame the authenticity–standardisation relationship in international gastronomy retailing and explores how and to what extent the food place of origin and the urban context in which the gastronomy stores are located shape customers' in-store experience.

This paper analyses the case of Eataly, which combines specialty grocery stores and restaurants disseminating the Italian eating style, quality food and regional traditions internationally. Facebook reviews (1,018) of four Eataly stores – New York City, Rome, Munich and Istanbul were analysed, adopting a web content mining approach.

Place of origin, quality and hosting city categories frame the gastronomic in-store experience. Standardisation elements (shared across the four analysed stores) and authenticity elements (specific to a single store) are identified towards defining three archetypical authenticity–standardisation relationships, namely originated authenticity, standardised authenticity and localised authenticity.

This study proposes original modelling that disentangles the authenticity–standardisation paradox in international gastronomy retailing. It provides evidence of the intertwining of the place of origin and the city brand in customers' in-store experience.

The purpose of this paper is to measure food loss and waste by material flow analysis (MFA) tool. Applying this methodology, the authors estimate wastage-related losses and discuss opportunities for more circular and sustainable practices in the Italian potato industry.

MFA is applied to two specific typologies as follows: ready-to-eat (chips) and dried potato products produced in Italy. The analysis refers to the year 2017 as the complete dataset useful for this study includes measurements until this year. A bottom-up and top-down mixed approach is applied, and functional unit refers to 1 t of potatoes consumed as final product.

MFA is applied to quantify and qualify material balance associated with 1 t of potatoes consumed as final product. In Italy, in 2017, more than 22,000 t of fresh tubers were lost, including 3,500–4,800 t of starch, equivalent to 52,800–72,600 GJs. Moreover, fewer than 23,000 t of skins and scraps were produced within industrial plants, not available for food but suitable for animal feed (dry skins are an excellent carbohydrates source in cattle and poultry feed), starch industry and bioenergy production (biogas and/or bioethanol).

This research is one of the few studies proposing MFA methodology as a tool to measure food waste. This analysis shows its utility in terms of food waste quality/quantity evaluation, supporting both company management and policymakers.

The hospitality industry is responsible for significant amounts of waste, more than one-third of which is food waste. Through the comparison between an Italian and a Romanian hotel, this paper aims to provide a better understanding of food waste management trends in the hotel industry as well as to highlight hotel kitchens and hotel food services weaknesses and opportunities to minimize food waste.

In-depth interviews, personal communication and observations were conducted to investigate food service planning, food procurement and food waste management, as well as to better comprehend current individuals’ understanding and attitudes, infrastructures, legislative culture and opportunities either from the managerial and the employees’ perspective. Data were analyzed according to a content analysis approach.

Three critical hot spots emerged from the analysis: prediction and check of guests’ attendance, communication and transparency with local suppliers and among departments within the unit and purchasing frequency and perishable food provisioning. The accurate forecasting of the number of guests and their nationality is fundamental in avoiding food waste at food service, as well as implementing transparency and communication with local suppliers.

Although academia and authorities have recognized the crucial importance of food waste management, food waste research in the hotel industry remains under-researched. The present exploratory research contributes to the scarce empirical studies about hotels’ food waste, giving theoretical and managerial recommendations for supporting further studies, highlighting the need for formal deals between hotels and local suppliers (food procurement), as well as the importance of food-networks that holds together companies, retailers and charities (food donation).

The paper focusses on festivals taking place in coastal regions whose central element is seafood. The purpose is to analyse the role of seafood festivals as potential tourist attractions for local development. The decision to focus on coastal areas is based on a perceived knowledge gap regarding the interactions between different sectors of the sea economy.

Qualitative exploratory case studies of seafood festivals in Italy and Sweden have been performed using an analytical model. The participatory observation methodology contributed to a better understanding of the phenomenon.

The analysis shows the close relationship between seafood and tourism, and although it takes variable forms, food is a fundamental lever for maritime and coastal tourism and local development. Findings suggest that local food events can help strengthening gastronomic identities, despite there is a different articulation between tradition and marketing in the two countries.

Since this paper represents an exploratory study of five seafood festivals, research needs to be extended and replicated before any findings can be generalized. However, the model is flexible enough to be tested in different food events.

Food events represent a key instrument for the integration of territorial policies in which tourism and food products might be used as strategic instruments for the development of coastal areas.

This paper is a first attempt to analyse and compare seafood events, contributing to filling the gap in event literature referring to coastal areas. The model introduced can be used to determine the articulation of tradition-marketing in different food events.

Food and beverage (F&B) small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) must diversify their markets and obtain predictable sources of revenues to withstand difficult and volatile periods such as the post-pandemic geopolitical scenario, recently burdened by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. On the other hand, another strand of the literature suggests that public procurement could be considered a great source of income, enabling solid contracts, revenues and cash-flow stability. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the role of public procurement, the adoption of e-commerce platforms and their interactions in affecting the exporting performances of SMEs operating in the F&B sector.

The study retrieves data from 2,186 Italian F&B manufacturing SMEs relying on Margò by Cribis database. Therefore, it conducts a structured equational model (SEM) to test the developed hypotheses empirically.

The findings reveal that digital selling platforms positively affect exports, whereas public procurement negatively affects F&B SMEs exports. Nonetheless, findings underline that the interaction between public procurement and the adoption of digital selling platforms dampens public procurement's negative effects on exports.

This study brings an original contribution to the F&B literature by conducting empirical research on an extensive sample of firms from one of the most influential countries in the F&B vertical, Italy, with officially registered data. More importantly, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this study pioneers the investigation of the relationship between public procurement and e-commerce platforms in affecting F&B SMEs' export performances.

Palm oil is widely used in the food industry; however, there are two main controversies connected to its use, namely, its nutritional value and the environmental consequences deriving from its crop. In Italy, the use of palm oil has recently been criticized, insomuch that some important bakery companies decided to substitute it, creating a real food marketing case. Through a focus on biscuits, this study is aimed at profiling consumers with regard to palm oil issue to better comprehend if the presence of this ingredient truly influences their food purchases and if they care about the nutritional and environmental aspects, highlighting the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on consumers' consumption.

A questionnaire was administered to 243 subjects in Italy, in order to apply a cluster analysis.

The findings show the presence of three main kinds of consumers: (1) compromise finders (sensitive to cost savings but trying to privilege palm-oil free food), (2) brand-loyal consumers (palm oil does not influence their preferences) and (3) healthsensitives (the presence of palm oil profoundly affects their choices), who represent the majority of our sample. The results and implications are discussed.

Research on palm oil is essentially focused on chemistry, natural sciences or on its industrial uses: this study analyzes the consumer point of view by applying a different methodology compared to existing studies.

The paper aims at investigating whether and how the product designation of origin (PDO) label influences consumers' acceptance, attributes' perception and purchase intention of PDO foods.

The study employs an experimental lab study based on the affective test of acceptance methodology with a nine-point hedonic scale. Three PDO foods are compared with similar non-PDO samples concerning cheese, cured ham and olive oil categories.

The presence of PDO labels enhances the consumers' acceptance as well as their perception of sensory attributes. A critical role of the brand name as an enhancer of consumer acceptance also emerges, highlighting the relationship between brand-name and PDO label.

The main limitation is related to the lab study methodology, which employs a small number of participants and occurs far from a “normal” situation of consumption. The acceptance test, moreover, does not provide explanations about motives underlying the differences in consumers' perception and preferences.

Practical implications are suggested for food companies concerning the management of both PDO labels and brand strategies and the product's properties that could improve the sensory perception of consumers and their overall product's acceptance.

The study contributes to the debate on consumer behaviour towards PDO foods by adding evidence about the positive influence of such a certification on individual preferences on the basis of a sensory methodology that has been little employed for studying the domain of product certifications.