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1 – 10 of 216Minna Kaljonen, Marja Salo, Jari Lyytimäki and Eeva Furman
The critical role of diet in climate change mitigation has raised behavioural approaches to the top of the agenda. In this paper, the authors take a critical look at these…
Abstract
Purpose
The critical role of diet in climate change mitigation has raised behavioural approaches to the top of the agenda. In this paper, the authors take a critical look at these behavioural approaches and call for a more dynamic, practice-oriented understanding of long-term changes in sustainable food consumption and supply.
Design/methodology/approach
This approach is based on the experiences from a long-term experiment promoting sustainable eating in a workplace lunch restaurant using a series of informational and nudging techniques. In the experiment, the authors found that focussing solely on eating behaviours did not help to capture the multi-level change processes mobilised. The authors therefore propose a more dynamic, practice-oriented methodology for examining long-term changes in sustainable eating. The emprical data of the experiment are based on qualitative and quantitative data, consisting of customer survey, customer and kitchen personnel focus group discussions and monitoring data on the use of food items in the restaurant and their climate impacts.
Findings
The results draw attention to a series of practical challenges restaurants face when promoting sustainable eating. Directing analytical attention to tinkering helped to reveal the tensions brought about by labelling and nudging in menu planning and recipe development. The results show how tinkering required attentiveness to customers' wishes in both cases. Nudging offered more freedom for the restaurant to develop menus and recipes. In the case scrutinised, however, nudging customers towards tastier and more satiating vegetarian dishes included the use of dairy. This partly watered down the climate benefits gained from reduced meat consumption.
Originality/value
Rather than looking separately at changes in consumer behaviour and in the supply of food, the authors show how we need analytical concepts that enable the evaluation of their mutual evolution. Tinkering can assist us in this endeavour. Its adaptive, adjustive character, however, calls for caution. The development of praxis in food services and catering requires critical companions from the transdisciplinary research community. Research can provide systematic knowledge on the impacts of labels and nudges on kitchen praxis. However, research itself also needs to tinker and learn from experiments. This necessitates long-term speculative research strategies.
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Terhi Junkkari, Maija Kantola, Leena Arjanne, Harri Luomala and Anu Hopia
This study aims to increase knowledge of the ability of nutrition labels to guide consumer choices in real-life environments.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to increase knowledge of the ability of nutrition labels to guide consumer choices in real-life environments.
Design/methodology/approach
Food consumption and plate waste data were collected from two self-service restaurants (SSR) with different customer groups over six observation days: three control and three intervention (with nutrition labelling) periods. Study Group 1 consisted of vocational school students, mostly late adolescents (N = 1,710), and Group 2 consisted of spa hotel customers, mostly elderly (N = 1,807). In the experimental restaurants, the same food was served to the buffets during the control and intervention periods.
Findings
The nutrition label in the lunch buffet guides customers to eat fewer main foods and salads and to select healthier choices. Increased consumption of taste enhancers (salt and ketchup) was observed in the study restaurants after nutritional labelling. Nutrition labelling was associated with a reduction in plate waste among the elderly, whereas the opposite was observed among adolescents.
Originality/value
The results provide public policymakers and marketers with a better understanding of the effects of nutrition labelling on consumer behaviour. Future studies should further evaluate the effects of nutrition labelling on the overall quality of customer diets and the complex environmental, social, and psychological factors affecting food choices and plate waste accumulation in various study groups.
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Luigi Piper, Antonio Mileti, M. Irene Prete and Gianluigi Guido
The purpose of this research is to demonstrate the effectiveness of pictorial warning labels that leverage the risk of obesity as a deterrent against alcohol abuse. It evaluates…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to demonstrate the effectiveness of pictorial warning labels that leverage the risk of obesity as a deterrent against alcohol abuse. It evaluates the impact of three different kinds of warning labels that can potentially discourage alcoholic drinking: (1) a claim, in text format, that cautions consumers about the product (i.e. a responsibility warning statement); (2) a textual warning label, text-format information on the content of the product or the consequences of excessive consumption (i.e. a synthetic nutritional table); (3) a pictorial warning label, an image depicting a food product with a caloric content equivalent to that of an alcoholic beverage.
Design/methodology/approach
In Study 1, a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design is used to evaluate the intention to buy different alcoholic cocktails. The stimuli comprised two cocktails that are similar in alcoholic volume, but different in their caloric content. The images of the products were presented across eight warning label conditions and shown to 480 randomly selected Italian respondents who quantified their intention to buy the product. In Study 2, a different sample of 34 Italian respondents was solicited with the same stimuli considered in Study 1, and neuropsychological measurements through Electroencephalography (EEG) were registered. A post hoc least significance difference (LSD) test is used to analyse data.
Findings
The results show that only the presence of an image representing an alcoholic beverage's caloric content causes a significant reduction in consumers' purchase intentions. This effect is due to the increase in negative emotions caused by pictorial warning labels.
Originality/value
The findings provide interesting insights on pictorial warning labels, which can influence the intention to purchase alcoholic beverages. They confirmed that the use of images in the warning labels has a greater impact than text, and that the risk of obesity is an effective deterrent in encouraging consumers to make healthier choices.
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Katsuhito Yamaguchi and Masakazu Suzuki
The purpose of this paper is to facilitate the spread of accessible e-books, especially ones of STEM much more in developing countries, an efficient/systematic scheme to localize…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to facilitate the spread of accessible e-books, especially ones of STEM much more in developing countries, an efficient/systematic scheme to localize tools for producing/reading them should be established. Furthermore, even in many advanced countries, Print-disabled people still do not have a good tool to write a content including technical notations such as mathematical formulas in their own local language. This work is aimed at giving a practical solution for those problems.
Design/methodology/approach
Here, multilingual support in a tool to produce accessible STEM contents and its new localization scheme are discussed.
Findings
It is shown that the accessible STEM-document editor can be customized easily for print-disabled people so that they can read and author a material including complicated technical notations in their own local language. The localization for Vietnamese and other various languages actually has been worked on.
Originality/value
The Vietnamese version was completed, and some prototype versions for the other languages were also given. It is expected that the software can contribute to improve STEM accessibility much more in many countries.
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Bendegul Okumus, Ahmet Bulent Ozturk and Anil Bilgihan
The purpose of this research is to examine the dining out activities of Gen Y's in the United States. In particular, it focuses on dining frequency, restaurant selection…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to examine the dining out activities of Gen Y's in the United States. In particular, it focuses on dining frequency, restaurant selection, restaurant segments and demographic features of Gen Yers.
Design/methodology/approach
Empirical data for this study were collected from 631 Gen Y's living in the United States.
Findings
The research findings reveal a nascent exploration of eating out preferences of the Gen Y population in an industrialized country in the food service context.
Research limitations/implications
Generation Y is a lucrative and growing customer group for the US foodservice industry. They dine out more frequently than the rest of the population and their dining out preferences are different from other cohorts.
Originality/value
This study offers some practical implications on Gen Y's dining out behavior for food service industry and restaurateurs.
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Claudia Cozzio, Oksana Tokarchuk and Oswin Maurer
The purpose of this study is to investigate how hotel guests can be nudged for more active engagement in hospitality plate waste prevention and moderation at buffets, through…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate how hotel guests can be nudged for more active engagement in hospitality plate waste prevention and moderation at buffets, through designing effective persuasive interventions. Plate waste is a main sustainability challenge, and it is considered one of the major drivers of food waste in the hospitality sector, whose operations generate excessive amounts of waste. The hospitality industry, featured by all-you-can-eat buffet-style settings, is somehow encouraging consumers to increase the amount of food ordered or taken and not been eaten.
Design/methodology/approach
This study reports a field experiment conducted in a real hotel setting, where persuasive interventions were targeted to consumers at the croissants buffet, when guests were making their selections. The research tests the persuasiveness of functional and experiential appeal messages to nudge hotel guests towards a more active engagement in avoiding plate waste. Each single treatment was carried out for three weeks in varying sequence.
Findings
The findings are based on 63 rounds of data collections and show the superiority of experiential appeal messages in positively influencing guests’ behaviour. This implies that appropriate messages can persuade tourists to avoid plate waste in buffet-style settings, especially if these messages are grounded in participatory cues with an emphasis on altruistic values.
Originality/value
This is one of the few studies that empirically tests the effectiveness of different persuasive interventions in a real consumption setting, thus measuring actual behaviours which have been rarely studied. This study further contributes to the identification of concrete communication tools that can help to mitigate plate waste generation.
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