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Climate change is threatening worldwide crop yields and varieties, and the desertification of Southern Europe and Mediterranean areas is endangering the cultivation of tomato, not only one of the most important cultivated crops, but also one of the main pillars of the global food industry. To minimize its environmental impact, current research efforts in Europe are selecting resilient tomato genotypes with reduced use of water and fertilizers. Still, its commercial acceptance depends on consumers&rsquo, reaction in terms of interests, attitudes, and willingness to buy and pay for this hypothetical resilient tomato. In our setting, a behavioural gap exists whenever despite an interest for the product, and regardless of a positive attitude towards it, consumers are not willing to pay a premium price for this tomato. This paper focuses on Italians, among the largest tomato consumers across the world, and for whom origin emerges as a relevant consumption driver. We carried out a web-survey, totalling 932 responses. We ran three different ordinal regressions, one for each level of involvement in the purchasing process, identifying the factors affecting consumers&rsquo, interest, attitude, and behaviour towards this hypothetical tomato. We prove the existence of a behavioural gap for Italian tomato consumers and observe that this gap widens as consumers&rsquo, preferences for origin increase. Hence, policies developing environmentally sustainable products should not forget how consumer preferences for non-strictly environmental attributes might ultimately affect their propensity to buy and pay.

Based on the knowledge-deficit model, this study proposes a relationship between consumer competence in purchasing foods and perceptions of the safety of imported and domestic foods. This study also examines how perceptions of the safety of imported and domestic foods affect satisfaction with food-related consumer policy and satisfaction with food-related life. Using data from the &ldquo, 2019 Consumer Behavior Survey for Food,&rdquo, which has been conducted every year since 2013 by the Korea Rural Economic Institute, we analyzed the responses of a final sample of 5869 respondents. The hypothesized conceptual model was assessed through structural equation modeling. All but one of the proposed relationships between consumer competence in purchasing foods and perceptions of food safety were supported. The relationship between perceptions of food safety and satisfaction with food-related consumer policies depends on whether foods are imported or domestic. Food origin also affected the relationship between perceptions of food safety and satisfaction with food-related life. Satisfaction with food-related consumer policies is significantly connected with satisfaction with food-related life. We discuss how the findings of this study can be applied to the development of food-related consumer policies.

Mycotoxins are low-molecular weight compounds produced by diverse genera of molds that may contaminate food and feed threatening the health of humans and animals. Recent findings underline the importance of studying the combined occurrence of multiple mycotoxins and the relevance of assessing the toxicity their simultaneous exposure may cause in living organisms. In this context, for the first time, this work has critically reviewed the most relevant data concerning the occurrence and toxicity of mycotoxins produced by Alternaria spp., which are among the most important emerging risks to be assessed in food safety, alone or in combination with other mycotoxins and bioactive food constituents. According to the literature covered, multiple Alternaria mycotoxins may often occur simultaneously in contaminated food, along with several other mycotoxins and food bioactives inherently present in the studied matrices. Although the toxicity of combinations naturally found in food has been rarely assessed experimentally, the data collected so far, clearly point out that chemical mixtures may differ in their toxicity compared to the effect of toxins tested individually. The data presented here may provide a solid foothold to better support the risk assessment of Alternaria mycotoxins highlighting the actual role of chemical mixtures on influencing their toxicity.

Certain properties relevant to probiotic action, e.g. resistance to acid, bile tolerance, adhesive properties, antibacterial activity, and antibiotic susceptibility were investigated of lactobacilli isolated from four kinds of Thai traditional fermented foods. Media of pH = 2.0–7.0 and bile salt concentrations of 0.3–1.0% were used as stress conditions. The adhesive properties were assessed by determination of bacterial hydrophobicity. Antibacterial activity of the probiotic lactobacilli was determined by means of the spot-on-lawn method. Among 563 isolates, only 3 strains (two from fermented pork and one from fermented tea leaves) showed extremely high survival rates under stress caused by acid or bile salts. The identification by PCR techniques revealed that these three strains were Lactobacillus fermentum. The strains from fermented pork showed higher adhesive potential than those from fermented tea leaves. The three strains inhibited test pathogenic bacteria to different extents. They were sensitive to chloramphenicol, quinupristin, erythromycin, kanamycin linezolid, rifampicin, streptomycin, and tetracycline but resistant to ciprofloxacin and vancomycin.