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The Dutch market for meat substitutes has grown steadily, however, their market share is still low, and meat consumption in the Netherlands is not decreasing. For a transition towards a more plant-based diet, understanding consumer motives regarding meat substitutes is important. The purpose of this study was to explore what motives lay behind the appropriateness of the use of meat substitutes in different usage situations.

In total, 20 semi-structured in-depth interviews were performed to discover Dutch consumers’ associations with the terms “eating vegetarian” and “meat substitutes”, as well as motives regarding the situational appropriateness of meat substitutes.

The most mentioned motives for eating vegetarian were “environmental impact”, “health” and “animal welfare”, while meat substitutes were mainly eaten to replace meat in the meal. Most participants perceived vegetarian stir-fry pieces appropriate for almost all situations; the appropriateness of other meat substitutes was more situation-specific. The thematic content analysis yielded seven categories for the motives given for the (in)appropriateness of the four meat substitutes in six usage situations: “Functionality”, “Convenience”, “Properties”, “Preferences”, “Association with meat”, “Association with meals” and “Nutrition”. Mainly motives in the categories convenience and functionality (function of the meat substitute in a meal) were mentioned for all situations and other motives were situation-specific.

The focus in the development of plant-based foods is mostly on the product properties. The situational appropriateness and the underlying motives regarding meat substitutes have not yet been studied. This exploratory study suggests that these should be taken into consideration in the design of new meat substitutes.

The objective of the study was to assess consumer exposure to warmed-over flavour, their eating habits with respect to pre-cooked stored meats, awareness of antioxidants and attitudes towards the use of natural antioxidants as preservatives in meat and meat products.

A total of 238 Check-All-That-Apply (CATA) design questionnaires were used to gather information from the University of Fort Hare community in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa.

The majority of the respondents had been exposed to warmed-over flavour before. More than half of the respondents did not know about antioxidants. Respondents were in support of the use of natural antioxidants in meat and meat products.

The study mainly captured consumer habits based on living arrangements. Age influence could not be extrapolated due to the nature of the population, which was being studied. The population was limited to the University community, which is mainly made up of not so widely spread age groups and more or less similar levels of education. As a result, the findings and conclusions may not be a true reflection of the general public consumers in terms of age, level of education and employment status.

This research presents an original insight into consumer habits concerning the purchasing and storage of pre-cooked meat and meat products. The study revealed that most consumers nowadays prefer ready-to-eat or pre-cooked meat and meat products due to convenience. The warmed-over flavour is common in pre-cooked meats. The findings suggests that the meat industry has to improve the shelf-life of pre-cooked foods such that warmed-over flavour development is delayed to fit into the current consumer habits. In recent years there has been a growing interest in the use of natural antioxidants to improve shelf-life of muscle foods. However, there is a dearth of information on consumer attitudes towards the use of natural antioxidants as preservatives. This study reveals that consumers are willing to try products formulated using natural antioxidants.

This study explains Indonesian consumers' choice of poultry meat attributes and the willingness to pay (WTP) for these attributes using a discrete choice experiment.

The survey was conducted for the traditional and modern channels and involved a sample of 440 respondents in the Greater Jakarta area. A discrete choice experiment was employed as the study framework and in designing the questionnaire. A multinomial logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate consumers' preference for poultry attributes in modern and traditional channels.

Consumers preferred warm poultry meat, government certification and product information labeling on poultry meat. The WTP for warm poultry meat was the highest, which is indicating that freshness is crucial for consumers to ensure quality. Moreover, consumers had more trust in government certification than private certification for food safety and were willing to pay more for product information labeling on poultry meat.

The government can use the model as a decision support to improve poultry meat quality at sales channels in Indonesia including to close sales channels where sick poultry are sold and thus address food safety concerns caused by the avian influenza outbreak.

This study shows that understanding the WTP for poultry meat attributes enables the government to control the poultry sales channels and stimulates producers to supply the market with a safer poultry meat quality using the price mechanism.

Following the standard practice of using nutrition claims to denote food functionality, this study empirically explores Chinese consumers’ willingness-to-pay for functional processed meat products by using three nutrition claims (namely “increased calcium,” “containing omega-3”, and “reduced salt”) made on pork sausages. It also aims to outline the typical characteristics of Chinese consumer segments based on preferences.

A choice-based choice experiment is utilized to investigate Chinese consumers’ valuation on attributes of interest regarding functional sausage products. First-hand data was collected in the two cities of Xi'an and Beijing.

There are market potentials for domestic and/or imported functional processed meat products among Chinese consumers. Nutrition claims made on pork sausages are appealing to Chinese consumers, and therefore, monetarily rewarded by them. Being imported from a more developed country of origin could both positively and negatively impact consumers’ WTP for nutrition claims made on pork sausages. Furthermore, specific functional modification strategies should be taken into account when addressing different segments of the Chinese market. In addition, regional impacts between Xi'an and Beijing are implied in terms of consumers’ valuation for functional pork sausages.

Limitations in the current study are mainly two folds. First, the WTP estimation magnitudes are subject to a hypothetical bias by using a stated preference approach. Second, this study only focuses on pork sausages to explore consumers’ perceptions and selects three nutrition claims among many other relevant options.

Implications are provided for meat marketers and for Chinese official food policymakers, such that promoting meat products with a nutrition claim is an attractive marketing strategy for foreign food manufacturers in China, and more reformulated meat products with better nutritional compositions should be allowed in the Chinese market.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this research is the first to fill in the literature blank on investigating the consumers’ valuation for functional meat in the emerging market of China. Because when taking Chinese consumers as a target market and evaluating their perceptions of food quality-related labeling and certifications, the existing literature is mainly limited to topics of product safety, organic/green products, and geographical origins. However, nutrition claims, as marketable credence attributes that associate closely to the main characteristics of the functional food products, have been explored to a much lesser extent among Chinese consumers.

This study comprehensively depicts the state of the art on sustainability research in the meat supply chain to advance the debate on challenges and issues associated with developing sustainable supply chain management practices.

The authors conducted a systematic literature review of 333 articles published in peer-reviewed journals and organized the extant literature into five areas of supply chain management practices: strategic orientation, continuity, collaboration, risk management, and proactivity.

Since 2016, the meat supply chain has received increasing scholarly attention. The literature shows the diffusion of highly heterogeneous sustainability practices related to multiple management areas and levels of analysis (institutional, industry, firm). The need for integrated, multilevel initiatives involving different stakeholders becomes increasingly crucial to the transition towards more sustainable meat supply chains.

This study highlights the importance of regulatory and stakeholder pressures in the sustainability transition. Beyond setting regulatory requirements, policymakers may facilitate the establishment of collaborations within the meat supply chain and foster the development of support services that help firms to integrate sustainability in their business models. The review also alerts entrepreneurs and managers to the benefits from cooperating with their supply chain partners to navigate the industry transition and thus more effectively respond to the demands of stakeholders and to the increasing customers’ awareness of sustainability issues.

This study is the first to systematize the corpus of knowledge on the sustainability of the meat supply chain by adopting a comprehensive approach to analyze relevant management and agriculture literature.

Modern meat processing requires automation and robotisation to remain sustainable and adapt to future challenges, including those brought by global infection events. Automation of all or many processes is seen as the way forward, with robots performing various tasks instead of people. Meat cutting is one of these tasks. Smart novel solutions, including smart knives, are required, with the smart knife being able to analyse and predict the meat it cuts. This paper aims to review technologies with the potential to be used as a so-called “smart knife” The criteria for a smart knife are also defined.

This paper reviews various technologies that can be used, either alone or in combination, for developing a future smart knife for robotic meat cutting, with possibilities for their integration into automatic meat processing. Optical methods, Near Infra-Red spectroscopy, electrical impedance spectroscopy, force sensing and electromagnetic wave-based sensing approaches are assessed against the defined criteria for a smart knife.

Optical methods are well established for meat quality and composition characterisation but lack speed and robustness for real-time use as part of a cutting tool. Combining these methods with artificial intelligence (AI) could improve the performance. Methods, such as electrical impedance measurements and rapid evaporative ionisation mass spectrometry, are invasive and not suitable in meat processing since they damage the meat. One attractive option is using athermal electromagnetic waves, although no commercially developed solutions exist that are readily adaptable to produce a smart knife with proven functionality, robustness or reliability.

This paper critically reviews and assesses a range of sensing technologies with very specific requirements: to be compatible with robotic assisted cutting in the meat industry. The concept of a smart knife that can benefit from these technologies to provide a real-time “feeling feedback” to the robot is at the centre of the discussion.

Sustainability challenges are omnipresent. This study aims to identify consumer segments based on food consumption practices from purchasing to disposal. A priori work identified quality attributes, food responsibility, dietary choices and food organisation and management within the home as key influences. Each represents an opportunity for consumers to employ more sustainable food behaviours. A priori work identified several indicators for each of these influences. This study explored the suitability of these indicators for measuring the identified key influences.

The authors used an online survey of 324 Irish food consumers in January 2021 to address online food interests, purchasing preferences and purchase behaviour linked to food sustainability.

The authors identify four consumer segments – food dabblers, food appreciators, pro-sus and pressured – which present a holistic view of the sustainable behaviours practiced by food consumers. The findings provide insight into the range of sustainability-related food behaviours actioned by consumers – from interest in meat-free products, organics and local produce to having an organised stock at home and minimising waste. The findings shed light on how consumers integrate elements of sustainability into their food lifestyles.

This study captures sustainability-related food behaviours from the point of purchase through to consumption and disposal and identifies four new consumer segments based on interests, preferences and behaviours.

Buying companies in the food industry increasingly recognize the need to cultivate relationships with their suppliers. Social capital and power are important to understand buyer–supplier relationships. Maintaining these relationships appears highly dependent on the degree of information sharing.

The study investigates how power and social capital dimensions are related to information sharing. A survey of first-tier suppliers in the Dutch meat processing industry was carried out. The data from 82 suppliers was analyzed using partial least squares.

It appears that expert power contributes to the cognitive and structural social capital. In contrast, coercive power showed no influence at all. Cognitive and structural social capital dimensions have a direct link to relational social capital, which significantly improves buyer–supplier information sharing in the food industry.

Buying companies can encourage supplier information sharing by building up their own expertise and cultivating social relationships. They should refrain from strong-handed practices.

Companies in the food and food processing industry are dependent on effective information exchange for their very survival. This study investigates the role of power and social capital in making such exchange possible and sustainable.

The purpose of this paper is to present a novel qualitative activity focus group (AFG) method for studying consumption practices. This participatory method, which is inspired by practice-theoretical thinking, combines focus group discussions with activities that represent the practices at the centre of the research.

The application of the AFG method is demonstrated with an empirical study of the transition to plant-based food consumption practices in Finland, involving four group sessions of 13 participants.

The findings from the empirical application of the AFG method illustrate that its key strength is the ability to foster fruitful and natural discussions on routine consumption practices that connect with discursive and practical dimensions and thus generate multidimensional data in resource-efficient ways.

The AFG method extends the methodological approaches in practice theory–oriented research, responding to the call for creative, real-life-reflecting methods that are able to grasp the discursive and embodied dimensions of practices. The method is proposed to be particularly suitable for research on mundane consumption practices.

Food safety is an important characteristic of food, because it influences health. Perception of food hazards is a complex issue. Consumers have different perceptions regarding the probability of a hazard occurring in different food groups. If a hazard appears in the food, it has severe consequences. This is not only because of the negative impact on health and life but also because of the entire economy and image of producers.

A survey using the Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing method was conducted in January 2020 in Poland with 2,000 respondents to collect information about consumers' perception of food safety and lack of food safety.

It was shown that this perception depends mainly on gender and the decisiveness on food purchase. The similarity of the country from which the hazard comes as well as the scientists' knowledge about the hazard influences hazard perception by consumers. If a hazard appears in food, it has serious consequences for consumers, food chain actors, public finance and so on. The occurrence of food hazards causes consumers to stop buying this food product.

This study provides interesting information about consumers' perception of the lack of food safety. These results can be used by food producers and food safety authorities. The results also provide input information for further research on the perception of food safety in various types of food products.