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The purpose of this paper is to report the hygiene and sanitation practices of restaurant food handlers of urban Vadodara, Gujarat, India.

In total, 55 food handlers were purposively selected, to study their personal hygiene and unit hygiene practices using semi‐structured questionnaire and observation schedules, from 40 small and medium‐sized restaurants of urban Vadodara. Microbial analysis of five samples, namely, hand rinse sample, table mop cloth, towel, knife and plate swabs was carried out to determine the total plate count and presence of Staphylococcus aureus, Coliform counts, Salmonella, Shigella, E. coli 0157:H7.

Most food handlers exhibited poor personal hygiene and poor personal habits. E. coli 0157:H7 was detected in two out of three knife samples and table mop cloth samples; Salmonella was detected in one of the table mops cloths and two hand towel samples, respectively. Two of the table mop cloth samples also indicated presence of Shigella.

The survey of food handlers implies gross violation of codex guidelines laid down for safe cooking and services practices for small and medium‐sized restaurants.

Consumption of foods at small and medium‐sized restaurants of urban Vadodara poses a high risk for the consumers.

This is an original study which should act as an eye opener for the food safety officers who need to enforce the food safety laws more stringently, so as to reduce the risk of outbreaks of food borne illnesses in the city of Vadodara.

Gujarati households are known for high consumption of edible oil and fried foods. However, there is lack of information on their knowledge about its use for various preparations and associated health risks. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Guajarati housewives in the age group of 30‐65 years were surveyed from five different zones of Vadodara. Information on their knowledge about the use of edible oils and associated health risks was collected using a pre‐tested structured questionnaire and food frequency questionnaire.

Only 5 percent subjects consumed deep fried foods daily. Odds ratio showed high association (OR=4.50) between daily consumption of deep fried food and obesity. Significant association (p<0.05) and high odds ratio (5.13) were seen between daily consumption of shallow fried foods and presence of diabetes. Obesity and hypertension were seen in 54.1 and 15.8 percent subjects, respectively. About 24 percent families used hydrogenated vegetable oil (vanaspati) for cooking purposes. Butter and ghee rich in saturated fats were regularly used by most families.

Poor knowledge amongst the Gujarati housewives on the correct use of fats and oils in their daily diets calls for an exhaustive education program to reduce high prevalence of obesity and other co‐morbidities prevalent in this part of the country.

This is an original research work completed in September 2011.

The research aims to study the feasibility and acceptability trials of fructooligosaccharide (FOS) substituted popular Indian foods.

Four Indian food items namely chapati, thepla, dhokla and patra were prepared. Wheat flour in chapati and thepla was substituted with FOS at four levels, i.e. 3 g, 5 g, 8 g and 10 g. Bengal gram in dhokla and patra was substituted with FOS at 3 levels, i.e. 5, 8 and 10 g. Ten semi‐trained panel members evaluated the recipes in triplicates using ten point numerical scoring test and difference test.

A significant reduction in all organoleptic attributes of chapati and thepla (p<0.001) was observed with the increase in level of substitution up to 10 g. A non‐significant increase in all the attributes was observed with the increase in level of FOS substitution in patra. For chapatis the most affected attribute were chewability, breakability and overall acceptability. For thepla there was 8.13 percent reduction in the overall acceptability. Dhokla and patra were acceptable at all the three levels of substitution. Using difference test a significant difference (p<0.05, p<0.01) was observed in the color and taste of chapatti. For thepla significant difference was observed in the organoleptic attributes like color and overall acceptability. However, no significant difference was noticed for dhokla and patra substituted with FOS.

The present study has opened a new avenue for preparation of commonly consumed FOS incorporated Indian food products.

This is original research which can benefit general and specific population.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of NaOCl and KMnO₄ at two levels in reducing the microbial load of coriander leaves.

Fresh coriander leaves procured from various markets were intensively sampled and administered to wash treatments with tap water and sanitizers at two levels. Hi media pre plated plates were used for determination of TPC (Total Plate Count), Staphylococcus aureus, Listeria, Salmonella, Shigella and coliforms.

Unwashed coriander leaves showed TPC beyond the acceptable limits of 105 CFU/g. Bulk washing (10 g sample dipped in 1 litre tap water for 5 minutes) did not significantly reduce TPC and any of the pathogens. TPC decreased significantly by 1 log cycle up on treatment with 200 ppm NaOCl and 100 ppm KMnO₄. Staphylococcus aureus could be reduced more effectively with 100 ppm of KMnO₄; Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella showed significant reductions (P<0.05) using both sanitizers. Shigella decreased by more than 1 log cycle when treated with 100 ppm KMnO₄.

Tap water is not sufficient to reduce the microbial load of fresh coriander. Use of 100 ppm NaOCl and 50 ppm KMnO₄ may be considered to reduce the pathogenic load of coriander leaves. Since reduction of pathogenic load by 1 log cycle is insufficient, other means of disinfecting the raw produce need to be tested. Also, use of good irrigation practices and aseptic post harvest techniques cannot be ignored.

This is an original study, wherein use of sanitizers should be promoted in order to reduce the microbial load of coriander leaves.

The purpose of this note is to provide some brand strategy perspectives to Sheth and Koschmann’s Do brands compete or coexist? How persistence of brand loyalty segments the market.

This paper is a comment piece written in response to Sheth and Koschmann’s “Do brands compete or coexist? How persistence of brand loyalty segments the market”.

In their article, Jagdish Sheth and Anthony Koschmann provide a very useful empirically grounded example of how categories can evolve to be dominated by two or three key players and some of the implications which result from that. In doing so, they offer a number of useful insights. At the same time, however, it should be recognized that a number of competitive forces have emerged in recent years that have disrupted long-established equilibria and threatened long-term leadership in numerous categories. This note describes the nature of those forces and outlines three strategic approaches to improve the odds of long-term brand leadership and success.

This response to Sheth and Koschmann’s paper provides a scholarly dialogue centered upon the premise of brand loyalty within the context of market competition.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and explore the factors that drive users to gift through social network services (SNS).

A questionnaire method was applied to collect data from the sample of the WeChat users who have used mini-program. This paper employed the partial least squares method and used SmartPLS2.0 to analysis sample data, which examined the validity as well as reliability of the sample and further tested the hypotheses by the path coefficients.

The empirical results showed that pleasure, social relationship maintenance, convenience and comprehensiveness are significantly related to SNS gifting behavior, and conscientiousness moderates the relationship between intention and behavior in the context of SNS gifting. However, this study cannot find the effect of symbolic representation, impersonality and gift reciprocity motivations.

Theoretically, this study perfects the research of SNS gifting on the lack of exploring characteristics of comprehensiveness. Practically, this paper lends insights on how SNS providers attract users to adopt gifting.

SNS gifting lacks a complete and effective promotion strategy, resulting in a small number of users as well as low profit. Besides, prior studies have focused on tradition gifting and online gifting. Little research talks about gifting on SNS phenomena, and thus it is necessary to perfect the theory of SNS gifting.

The purpose of this paper is to stimulate historical thinking in dealing with problems of marketing thought, by explaining the advantages of studying the history of a discipline's ideas; examining what has been included in prior histories; and evaluating the completeness of coverage in Tadajewski and Jones' (2008) The History of Marketing Thought.

This paper presents a comparative analysis based upon prior histories of marketing thought.

For teaching, with modest supplementation, The History of Marketing Thought provides a full appreciation of the intellectual heritage of marketing. For research purposes, The History of Marketing Thought does reasonably well in organizing concepts and theories into schools of marketing thought but less well in showing how these ideas can be organized across the readings to produce new knowledge.

There were some important omissions in the collection. Marketing's leading thinker was largely neglected and many significant problems for marketing thought are overlooked. There was no discussion of methodological issues and minimal editorial commentary connected the parts and sections to provide a research thrust to the work. Consequently, it is recommended that another volume or two be added to this set.

The educational value of this work is in transmitting the knowledge base of the discipline from one generation of marketing scholars to the next. It is only after the ideas developed by earlier marketing thinkers are fully understood that innovative theories can be constructed and new knowledge created.

There are two main objectives in this study. First, we aim to develop a set of constructs for health task management support (HTMS) features to evaluate which health-related tasks are supported by mobile health application (mHealth app) functions. Second, drawing on innovation resistance theory (IRT), we examine the impacts of the newly developed HTMS dimensions on perceived usefulness, alongside other barrier factors contributing to technology anxiety.

Using a mixed-method research design, this research seeks to develop new measurement scales that reflect how mHealth apps support older adults’ health-related needs based on interviews. Subsequently, data were collected from older adults and exploratory factor analysis was used to confirm the validity of the new scales. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze survey data from 602 older adults.

The PLS-SEM results indicated that medical management task support, dietary task support, and exercise task support were positively associated with perceived usefulness, while perceived complexity and dispositional resistance to change were identified as antecedents of technology anxiety. Perceived usefulness and technology anxiety were found to positively and negatively influence adoption intention, respectively.

This study enriches the information systems literature by developing a multidimensional construct that delineates how older adults’ health-related needs can be supported by features of mHealth apps. Drawing on IRT, we complement the existing literature on resistance to innovation by systematically examining the impact of five types of barriers on technology anxiety.