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This paper aims to present an analysis of the various dimensions of naturalness that shape the consumption practices of parents with young children.

The study builds on semi-structured interviews with 17 mothers and fathers focusing on parental decision-making in everyday consumption from pregnancy to the first years of the child’s life.

Naturalness is a tool allowing parents to navigate in a world of risks and part of an everyday consumption practice that constructs and maintains children as vulnerable and parents as responsible. Parents perceive naturalness as something with three dimensions: familiarity, purity and culture. These three dimensions lead to different parental practices around consumption.

The analysis contributes to the authors’ understanding of parenting, childhood, risk, safety and consumption by showing how and why parents of young children construct naturalness as a three-dimensional ideal in their consumption practices.

Meat which has been injected or tumbled with water, salt, sugar and other ingredients, has been available on the Danish market for some decades and is now becoming increasingly common. However, it is not known whether this so‐called neutrally marinated meat will be appropriated by consumers in the long term, or will be destined to be a marginal second rate product. The purpose of this paper is to explore the views of consumers on neutrally marinated meat, including acceptance and potential problems for appropriation.

Four focus group interviews were conducted involving 27 Danish consumers with various socio‐demographic backgrounds.

The interviewed consumers had very little prior knowledge of neutrally marinated meat, and expressed ambivalent attitudes when introduced to it. They had favourable reactions to its taste, texture and robustness and saw the potentially low price as a positive feature. But they also viewed neutrally marinated meat as unnatural, unauthentic and potentially risky to health. Furthermore, concern was expressed due to the lack of information available to consumers and due to suspicion of unfair prices. The focus group interviews also showed that categorisation of neutrally marinated meat in different social contexts is not settled, underlining a sense of ambivalence among consumers. So, even though neutrally marinated meat is being consumed it is unclear if and when conceptual appropriation will take place.

This study provides a broader perspective on consumer perception of new products than found in conventional sensorial tests, including views on the processing, health aspects, ethical aspects and convenience aspects.

Based on New Nordic Cuisine and Nordic dietary recommendations, the research centre OPUS has developed a healthy, sustainable and tasty New Nordic Diet (NND) with the goal of improving public health in Denmark. In order to determine the health potential of the NND, a six-month, controlled dietary intervention trial was conducted, in which participants procured NND foods at a specially designed intervention supermarket and prepared and consumed NND meals in their homes. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A qualitative sociological study was conducted among intervention participants in order to explore whether and how they appropriated this diet into their everyday food practices.

Participants appropriated the NND by becoming co-producers of this diet, tailoring it to accord with individual preferences and the demands of everyday life. Findings indicate that while the taste of the NND is likely to appeal to wider groups of consumers, the tasks of food procurement and preparation are likely to constitute barriers to its adoption. The strictly controlled intervention setting enabled participants to learn how to comply with dietary composition despite their deviations from given menu-plans and recipes. The extent to which such compliance would be achieved outside this context by other consumers is questioned. Further studies are needed to determine whether more widespread consumption of the NND would in practice comply with Nordic dietary recommendations.

The study provides insights relevant to health agencies, public health researchers and food companies regarding consumer appropriation of a dietary system, the health benefits of which are dependent upon dietary compliance.

This study, a research project, aims to examine the distinct characteristics of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), with a focus on construction. Following this examination, the paper presents a field study to evaluate the impact of the 4IR on the construction process.

The first half of this project is dedicated to defining the 4IR by reviewing existing literature. The other half of the project presents a case study to demonstrate the concept of the 4IR and measure the effect of its application. To validate the defined concept of the 4IR, the study focuses on the following: autonomous system for producing drawings and robotics in construction.

The intensive literature review revealed three unequivocal features of the 4IR: defined tasks, undefined tasks and improvement possibilities. The following case study showed that the incorporation of the three 4IR features resulted in improved productivity and efficiency during the construction of the podium for the Lotte World Tower. For example, the macro-based autonomous system achieved 5.52 shop drawings per hour, highlighting the potential impact of independent, autonomous machinery.

The originality of this project stems from its attempt to quantify the effectiveness of applying autonomous technologies to a practical project. While previous works in this field have focused on system development and improvement, this paper presents an autonomous system at work in an actual project, in which junior engineers were able to be entirely replaced. The system was successful in independently creating numerous required shop drawings. The value of this analysis is to generate scientific evidence to evaluate the efficacy of the adoption of 4IR-oriented technologies.