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This paper sets out to investigate the factors affecting product class involvement for food. Factors affecting specific aspects of involvement are also to be explored. The aim is to determine the factors that affect involvement with food and sketch the profile of consumers more likely to be involved or not involved with food. This paper also seeks to assess the factors affecting the importance attached to different aspects of food such as taste, price, nutrition, ease of preparation, and brand name.

Building on the literature a conceptual model is developed and empirically tested using survey data collected from supermarkets in Athens. Data were analyzed using probit and ordered probit analysis and marginal effects were calculated which show how much the level of involvement or importance is affected when a variable is changed.

This study finds that younger consumers, those with higher education and income who engage in nutritional label use behavior and do not prepare food for their household are more likely to have low involvement with food. Less distinctive characteristics are apparent for the highly involved consumers. Different consumer profiles are also associated with different aspects of food involvement based on importance attached to price, ease of preparation, nutrition, taste, and brand name.

A caveat has to do with the localized nature of this study and therefore the limitations in generalizing results. Future research could use larger samples and other measures of product class involvement to test the robustness of these results.

The study suggests that overall involvement with food, based on attribute importance, is affected by several socioeconomic and attitudinal variables. The findings also suggest that different profiles of consumers can be associated with different aspects or attributes of food such as taste, price, nutrition, ease of preparation, and brand name. The analysis can be used as a segmentation tool that can assist marketing management with marketing mix decisions, and in particular with promotional strategy in order to increase marketing efficiency.

The paper gives new insights on consumer segmentation. It provides the profile of consumers more likely to be involved or not involved with food based on specific aspects such as price, nutrition, taste, ease of preparation and brand name.

The purpose of this paper is to identify which innovation implementation strategies have the highest success potential, and which factors affect the adoption of fruit‐related innovations by consumers. The authors focus on consumer‐driven and responsive fruit supply chains.

The authors propose a new conceptual framework that links fruit consumption to innovation implementation strategies. A total of 36 experts in four panels organised, respectively, in Spain, Poland, Greece, and The Netherlands evaluated the elements of the proposed framework.

“Market orientation” and “continuous learning and knowledge acquisition” surfaced as the innovation implementation strategies with the highest success potential. However, the optimal mix of strategies depends on the particular innovation as well as the geographic and cultural characteristics of the targeted consumer population. Furthermore, improving technological competence is the single most important factor affecting fruit innovation adoption.

The reported results are derived from four small groups of purposefully chosen experts and supply chain stakeholders. Nevertheless, they provide new insights useful to policy makers, consumers, and entrepreneurs.

In designing innovations, fruit chain actors should first and foremost consider the price premium consumers will have to pay. Furthermore, for some innovations geographic or cultural characteristics become very important. Therefore, fruit supply chains should design their innovation implementation strategies accordingly.

By adopting efficiently designed innovation implementation strategies, consumer‐driven fruit supply chains will convince consumers to eat more fruit. Thus, given the critical contribution of fruit consumption to human health, an important social goal is achieved.

While the literature on innovation is enormous, very little has been published on innovation implementation strategies adopted by consumer‐driven and responsive fruit chains. The significance of addressing the previously mentioned issues stems from the need to increase fruit consumption in Europe, which lags behind the levels suggested by physicians and nutrition scientists. Fruit‐related innovations are a useful means to achieving this goal.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the usefulness of nutrition labels in Thailand during nutrition transition from traditional to modern diets that increase salt, sugar, and calorie intake and to note socio-demographic interactions and associations with consumption of transitional processed foods.

The authors studied 42,750 distance learning Open University adults aged 23-96 years in 2013 residing nationwide and participating in an ongoing community-based prospective cohort study. The authors used multivariable logistic regression to relate nutrition label experiences (“read”, “good understand”, “frequent use”), socio-demographic factors, and consumption of four transitional foods. These foods included “unhealthy” instant foods, carbonated soft drinks, and sweet drinks, or “healthy” milk.

Overall, two-thirds reported good understanding and frequent use of nutrition labels. Unhealthy transition-indicator processed foods were frequently consumed: instant foods (7 per cent), (carbonated) soft drinks (15 per cent), and sweet drinks (41 per cent). Frequent users of nutrition labels (e.g. females, older persons, professionals) were less likely to consume unhealthy indicator foods. Those with the most positive overall nutrition label experience (“read” + “good understanding” + “frequent use”) had the best indicator food profiles: instant foods (odds ratio (OR) 0.63; 95%CI, 0.56-0.70); soft drinks (OR 0.56; 95%CI, 0.52-0.61); sweet drinks (OR 0.79; 95%CI, 0.74-0.85); milk (OR 1.87; 95%CI, 1.74-2.00).

Knowledge protected – those with most nutrition label experience were least likely to consume unhealthy foods. Results support government regulated nutrition labels, expanding to include sweet drinks. The study is remarkable for its large size and nationwide footprint. Study subjects were educated, represent Thais of the future, and show high awareness of transition-indicator foods.