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The naming and labeling of products can affect consumer attitudes and subsequent behavior, particularly in the case of new food products in the market. The present study explores the effects of name framing on consumer attitudes towards cultured meat (CM), which is currently in the early stages of development. With a sample of 1532 Chinese consumers, we integrated several pathways to explain the name-framing effect by examining three different terms (“cultured,” “artificial,” and “cell-based”) for CM. Results indicate that “cultured meat” and “cell-based meat” are more appealing than “artificial meat.” Name framings of CM affect consumers’ perception of benefits more than that of risks. Our comprehensive model identified evoked affect (perceived disgust) and naturalness as two crucial predictors of attitudes. These two predictors also act as substantial mediators of perceived benefits, and they activate the mediation of perceived risks (an insignificant mediator in cognitive processing). In addition, perceived naturalness mediates the name-framing effect mainly through perceived disgust. Our findings have implications for future strategies for communicating about novel foods (like CM) to the public.

One novel strategy to shift food choices in digital shopping environments is to automatically recommend healthier alternatives when an unhealthy choice is made. However, this raises the question which alternative products to recommend. This study assesses 1) whether healthier food swap recommendations are effective, even though the unhealthy choice was made in the presence of visible FOP nutrition labels, and 2) how the similarity of the alternatives influences the acceptance of food swap recommendations. Based on a pre-test, similarity of the recommendation was operationalized in terms of animal-based versus plant-based options. A randomized controlled trial (healthy food swap recommendation conditions: none, similar animal-based, dissimilar plant-based, or mixed animal- and plant-based) with 428 Dutch participants was conducted in a simulated online supermarket. Additional healthier food swap recommendations improved the nutritional quality of the final basket compared to only providing Nutri-Score nutrition labels (−1.7 mean FSA score, p < .001, medium Cohen's d = −0.48). Compared to the dissimilar condition, acceptance of an alternative was more likely in the mixed (odds-ratio = 2.78, p = .015) and in the similar condition (odds-ratio = 2.24, p = .048), but the nutritional quality of the final basket did not differ between treatment conditions. Individuals in treatment conditions who did not receive any recommendation (i.e. only made healthy choices) had higher Nutri-Score familiarity and general health interest than individuals who received recommendations. This suggests that for individuals with higher knowledge and motivation FOP nutrition labels were sufficient, whereas for individuals with lower knowledge and motivation additional food swap recommendations can improve dietary choices. Food swap recommendations may act as meaningful reminders by disrupting the automatic choice process and triggering individuals to rethink their (unhealthy) choice.

Research on consumer responses to sustainable food packaging often only compares materials or evaluates one sustainable aspect within a material category at a time. However, sustainability improvements are proliferating and can co-appear in the packaging design. This study builds upon existing research by identifying and describing the heterogeneity of consumer responses when three sustainable aspects (combinations) of plastic are simultaneously assessed. Bio-based, active technology, and compostable aspects were considered because they improve sustainability at different lifecycle stages of packaged foods. Using conjoint analysis, model guided segmentation and profiling, we found that consumer preferences for sustainable aspects vary, and that considering this heterogeneity matters to best understand consumer responses. Consequently, differences between the five identified consumer mindsets suggest that ecologically conscious consumers were more likely to prefer sustainable over conventional options and vice versa. Our findings underscore the importance of taking consumer diversity into account when introducing sustainable packaging innovations to the market.

This research explored how variations in green information influence consumer responses to green food packaging. Study 1 (N = 355) addressed how consumers evaluate packaging sustainability given the interplay between source cues, claim cues and the order of cue presentation. Study 2 (N = 546) additionally investigated the role of product cues (namely, naturalness) in sustainability evaluations of green packaging. Both studies examined perceived credibility of green information as the underlining mechanism explaining packaging cues’ effects on perceived sustainability. Overall, consumers valued green communication using credible cues on packaged foods but they also: (1) appreciated higher cue quantity, (2) did not penalize communications using low credibility cues, and (3) evaluated green packaging information swayed by product cues.

The nutritional quality of our diet depends on a number of repeated choices we make throughout the day. Understanding consumer behaviour in its full complexity and real-life context is essential for ensuring a sustainable food system that provides nutritious diets to nearly 10 billion people by 2050. Food consumer science, a multidisciplinary field, aims to comprehend how consumers engage with, desire, obtain, utilise, and dispose of food to meet their physiological, psychological, and social needs. However, the field’s fragmented nature and narrow focus on isolated product choices have hindered progress in understanding food consumption patterns and their relationships to lifestyles. To address these challenges, fostering greater connectivity and collaboration among scientists from diverse disciplines and regions is crucial. This presentation explores data proliferation and system thinking’s potential for significant advancements in the field. While the incorporation of technologies like neuroimaging, physiological measures, virtual reality, and machine learning holds promise, the complexity of the field and the lack of integration present legitimate concerns and obstacles. This presentation highlights food consumer science’s indispensable role in health and sustainability transitions, emphasising the importance of ensuring that the data we produce are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR). It showcases approaches to improve data sharing in consumer science, demonstrating progress in harmonising measures, ensuring cross-cultural comparability, and addressing biases in data collection and analysis. Furthermore, we explore the opportunities and challenges associated with establishing research infrastructure in food consumer science, specifically highlighting the EU Horizon 2020-project COMFOCUS as a starting point.

Consumer concern for animal welfare is currently not fully reflected in the market share of animal-friendly products. Marketing strategies for animal-friendly products typically emphasize sustainability-related benefits, such as animal welfare, while existing research suggests that consumers prioritize personally relevant benefits, such as taste and curiosity. This study tests the effectiveness of positioning strategies emphasizing personally relevant benefits, namely curiosity, in a real-life experiment at the point of purchase, also measuring the effects of certified labels and the impact of consumer attitudes towards eating meat. It conducts experimental auctions with 101 Dutch university students and measures their willingness to pay (WTP) for a lunch meal with chicken meat. Results indicate that both the positioning strategy and the certified label significantly increase consumer WTP, with the highest WTP generated when both elements are present (without providing evidence for an interaction effect). This implies that to maximize sales of welfare-enhanced meat companies should combine positioning strategies that emphasize personally relevant benefits with certified labels that can support the claimed animal friendliness. Since our results also suggest that consumers with conflicting feelings towards meat are less sensitive to such strategies, some care should be taken when designing awareness campaigns about the negative effects of meat consumption.

The effectiveness of nutrition labels in modifying dietary choices remains limited. Information provision alone is a necessary yet insufficient condition for behavior change to occur. Individuals need to (1) turn information into knowledge and (2) turn knowledge into behavior. This article provides a theoretical framework that suggests that complementary interventions may be needed to target barriers that prevent individuals from processing and acting upon FOP nutrition labels. Evidence about which interventions can support nutrition labels for behavioral change is scattered. This article addresses this research gap through a systematic review of multicomponent nutrition label interventions (label+ interventions) and their effects on the actual healthfulness of dietary choices. From the 3519 records identified, 85 label+ interventions were included. The findings provide limited evidence for the effectiveness of supporting nutrition labels with educational material or reference information. The evidence for supporting nutrition labels with interactive digital interventions, such as basket feedback, or financial incentives is promising. Overall, the findings indicate that more intrusive interventions are required to give cause to act on nutrition labels. Implications and future research avenues for the various label+ categories are discussed. Trial registration: PROSPERO systematic review registration number: CRD42020183141.

TikTok influencer videos are becoming increasingly popular for promotional purposes and are appealing to adolescents. Yet, the products' level of integration into the storyline of such videos influences their recognizability as advertisements, which is concerning as they expose adolescents to unhealthy social media food marketing, leading to unhealthy consumption. This study investigated whether a sponsorship disclosure in a TikTok influencer video with different levels of product-plot integration increases adolescents' persuasion knowledge and impacts their brand outcomes. This between-subjects 2 × 2 experiment included 245 Dutch adolescents with a mean age of 13.6 (SD = 1.42). Participants watched a TikTok video in which the brand Doritos was shown passively or integrated into the storyline, with or without a disclosure. The sponsorship disclosure significantly increased recognition of advertising (F(241) = 4.48, p = .035) and understanding of persuasive intent (F(241) = 13.28, p = <.001), regardless of product-plot integration level. Yet, brand attitude and product choice were not affected significantly by the disclosure. Overall, sponsorship disclosure in TikTok influencer videos helps create transparency and increase adolescents’ recognition and understanding of commercial and persuasive intent. This study is the first to investigate disclosures in the context of popular short-format social media videos.

Recently, situation researchers have developed taxonomies of situation-perception dimensions, also called situation characteristics. Situation-perception dimensions reflect how individuals psychologically interpret situations and predict subsequent behaviour. Similarly, in appraisal theories of emotion, appraisal dimensions have helped to understand how individuals evaluate situations according to their goals, and how these evaluations lead to emotions and subsequent behaviours. Surprisingly, thus far these two lines of research have hardly been linked. To reduce potential jangle fallacies, we examine the conceptual and empirical correspondence between situation perception and appraisal in daily-life situations (Study 1) and in emotional situations (Study 2). In each study, 550 UK participants recalled a recently experienced situation and rated the situation on ten situation-perception dimensions and on ten appraisal dimensions. The findings reveal overlap between situation perception and appraisal in five higher-order dimensions: Valence, Task-related effort, Familiarity, Negative interaction, and Positive interaction. Additionally, situation perception and appraisal overlap in predicting experienced emotions. Together, these findings suggest that there is considerable overlap between situation perception and appraisal, and that it may be worthwhile to link these two research fields.

Background: Eating habits must change substantially in order to address the urgent societal challenges of personal, public and planetary health. Research surrounding various facets of the dietary transition remains siloed, hindering breakthroughs. Scope and approach: We argue the scientific case for transdisciplinary research centered around the transition to healthy, sustainable, and acceptable diets. This transition requires tackling the broad societal challenges of engaging consumers in the diet transition, improving nutritional health and achieving environmental sustainability of foods and food systems. Key findings: The crucial synergies and trade-offs from addressing single challenges in isolation are discussed, as well as obstacles when considering the collaboration between the multiple scientific disciplines concerned with the dietary transition. Currently, interactions between these challenges remain understudied and/or ambiguous, in part due to a lack of interoperable data and standards. Intersectional research entry points acting at the intersection of the three challenges are explored: food taste and texture reformulation, food pricing strategies and food literacy. The implementation of such cross-cutting interventions urgently requires both the generation of new data and exploitation of the breadth of existing data. Researchers must therefore be facilitated to find, access and use interoperable data to model and measure food intake and all its determinants. Conclusions: The dietary transition requires underpinning by a research infrastructure that supports access to transdisciplinary data, facilities and research tools, alongside training and capacity building. Filling these unmet data, tools and training needs is the first step towards delivering breakthrough innovations to foods and food environments, mobilizing consumers to engage in the dietary transition.

This research investigates the attitudes and intentions of Chinese consumers about cultured “meat” (CM). We also investigate framing effects through the names used for these products (“cultured meat,” “artificial meat,” and “cell-based meat”) and the effect of information provision. Of the 1532 consumers in our sample, most had not heard of “cultured meat” or “cell-based meat” before, although 70% had heard of “artificial meat”. Around 44% of the participants indicated that they would be willing to try CM, and 32% would be likely to purchase it. Participants disliked the terms “cultured meat” and “cell-based meat” less than they disliked the term “artificial meat,” although the latter was the most familiar to them. The provision of neutral information on the production process increased consumer support for CM, but the effect was limited. Prior knowledge and naming terms were strong predictors of attitudes and willingness to buy. A key implication is that stakeholders should cautiously apply framing strategies when introducing CM to the public.

This work examines the associated emotions of consumers transmitted from extrinsic attributes (fat‐related nutrition claims (full‐fat, low‐fat, and fat‐free) and ingredient features (plain, berries, and double chocolate chunk)) labelled on yoghurt packages. It differentiates by consumption context (health versus indulgent) at the time of the survey and studies the relationship between the associated emotions (e.g., positive versus negative) attached to extrinsic attributes and the actual choices. The research was conducted in the Netherlands in 2019, with 209 regular consumers of yoghurt. Participants were divided into two treatments according to each consumption context and a control group (no context); they were instructed to imagine purchasing yoghurt to consume it as a healthy snack or as a dessert or received no instructions. After choosing their preferred option from a discrete choice experiment, participants indicated how the choice made them feel from a list of emotions. The results revealed significant differences between positive emotional profiles for choosing healthy (low‐fat) yoghurts with berries and negative profiles for choosing less healthy alternatives (full‐fat) with double chocolate chunk sensory features. The findings from a random parameter logit model showed that participants who continuously chose the same type of yoghurt in all choice tasks selected mostly positive rather than negative emotions. The overall findings suggest that the associated emotions affect yoghurt choices. However, the emotions were mainly affected by the consumption context.

Research on social influences often distinguishes between social and quality incentives to ascribe meaning to the value that popularity conveys. This study examines the neural correlates of those incentives through which popularity influences preferences. This research reports an functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment and a behavioral task in which respondents evaluated popular products with three focus perspectives; unspecified focus, focus on social aspects, and focus on quality. The results show that value derived with a social focus reflects inferences of approval and reward value, and positively affects preferences. Value derived with a quality (versus normal) focus reflects inferences of quality and negatively affects preferences. This study provides evidence of two distinct inferential routes on both a neurological level, represented by different regions in the brain, and a behavioral level. These results provide the first evidence that a single popularity cue can in different ways influence the value derived from product popularity.

This paper replies to the call for more agile-stage-gate hybrid methods in the context of physical innovations. By showing how some of the characteristics of conventional linear stage-gate methods and of the agile approaches can be integrated, we propose and test a new form of hybrid method for the physical new product development process (NPD). Distinguishing itself from the conventional NPD methods and practices, biased towards alignments between companies and consumers as the key to market success, our method focuses on the innovation potential intrinsic to misalignments. Through a qualitative research applied in an existing European consortium of innovators, the present work guides companies in the systematic identification and exploration of misalignments between their designers and users. By identifying misalignments at specific level of the NPD process, our method provides companies with a deep analytical insight into how, where and why (mis)alignments between their designers' decisions and users’ demands might occur. Our method revealed to be a strategic learning and reflection tool to support companies in the proactive management of the identified misalignments, as informative, beneficial and inspirational aspects of the NPD process.

Sustainable packaging innovations are becoming increasingly available in the marketplace. However, their communication to consumers remains a challenging task, as neither their distinctiveness nor their higher sustainability level is recognized. Contributing to research in environmental psychology, the current work conceptualized and tested the new concept of Meaningful Reminder as a strategy to communicate such distinctiveness and higher sustainability. To understand how a meaningful reminder can be created and used, this research investigated how eco explicit (logos, labels and statements) and implicit packaging design cues (auditory, tactile and visual elements) combine and interact and how such a combination can be used to the advantage of sustainability, to increase sustainability salience, perception and sustainable disposal behavior of the packaging and its content. Across three lab studies and different measures (lexical decision task, thought listing task, self-reported scales and observations of consumers’ disposal behavior), we identify the conditions under which combining explicit and implicit cues can be counterproductive, not leading to any increase or even a decrease in sustainability salience and perception. However, under different conditions, we show how sustainability salience, perception of packaging sustainability and even consumer sustainable disposal behaviour can be positively affected.

Consumers often have a positive attitude to the option of receiving personalized nutrition advice based upon genetic testing, since the prospect of enhancing or maintaining one’s health can be perceived as empowering. Current direct-to-consumer services over the Internet, however, suffer from a questionable level of truthfulness and consumer protection, in addition to an imbalance between far-reaching promises and contrasting disclaimers. Psychological and behavioral studies indicate that consumer acceptance of a new technology is primarily explained by the end user’s rational and emotional interpretation as well as moral beliefs. Results from such studies indicate that personalized nutrition must create true value for the consumer. Also, the freedom to choose is crucial for consumer acceptance. From an ethical point of view, consumer protection is crucial, and caution must be exercised when putting nutrigenomic-based tests and advice services on the market. Current Internet offerings appear to reveal a need to further guaranty legal certainty by ensuring privacy, consumer protection and safety. Personalized nutrition services are on the borderline between nutrition and medicine. Current regulation of this area is incomplete and undergoing development. This situation entails the necessity for carefully assessing and developing existing rules that safeguard fundamental rights and data protection while taking into account the sensitivity of data, the risks posed by each step in their processing, and sufficient guarantees for consumers against potential misuse.

This data was used for the redaction of the project deliverable "D2.5: Design specifications". Designing specifications for promising food markets for each targeted packaging technology of MYPACK. Moreover, this data is from the scientific publication "A meaningful reminder on sustainability: When explicit and implicit packaging cues meet”.

Eating habits appear to become less healthy once children move into adolescence. Adolescence is characterized by increasing independence and autonomy. Still, parents continue influencing adolescents' eating habits. This cross-sectional study used a Self-Determination Theory perspective to examine how parents can support preadolescents' food-related autonomy and competence and how these factors are associated with healthy eating motivation and food consumption at school. In addition, the effect of relative healthy food availability at home on preadolescents' food consumption at school was explored. In total, 142 Dutch preadolescents (mean age 12.18) and 81 parents completed questionnaires. The results showed that preadolescents perceived themselves as having higher food-related autonomy and lower competence to eat healthily as compared to their parents' perceptions. A path analysis was conducted to test the hypothesized model. Although parental support was positively associated with food-related autonomy, higher food-related autonomy was related to less healthy food intake at school. On the other hand, competence to eat healthily indirectly affected preadolescents' healthy intake ratio through their healthy eating motivation. Finally, the relative availability of healthy options at home was positively associated with preadolescents' healthy intake ratio outside the home. Findings from the study advance the understanding of individual and environmental factors that influence eating habits during the key life period of early adolescence. The results may inform interventions aiming to guide preadolescents to make healthy food choices on their own.

An increasing number of studies investigate the effects of mindfulness on food intake and weight outcomes, while the underlying mechanisms by which mindfulness exerts its effects have received less attention. We conducted two pre-registered studies to shed light on the frequently proposed yet largely understudied hypothesis that mindfulness improves awareness of bodily signals of satiation and hunger. We assessed the ability to perceive the onset of bodily signals of satiation with the two-step water load test (Study 1) and the ability to perceive the onset of bodily signals of hunger with the preload test (Study 2). A brief mindfulness exercise (body scan) did not impact the perception of satiation but improved the ability to perceive bodily signals of hunger. After the consumption of a standardized preload, participants in the two experimental conditions felt equally satiated; nevertheless, those in the mindfulness condition perceived the onset of hunger 18min earlier than those in the control condition and this effect persisted also in the presence of control variables. These findings together suggest that even a single and short mindfulness exercise can improve perception of hunger signals substantially, while more intensive mindfulness training may be needed to impact perception of satiation signals.

Cultured meat is a potentially successful future alternative to conventional meat if consumers perceive it as similar enough to conventional meat. This paper aimed to investigate how consumers categorize cultured meat after receiving information about it being similar to meat or meat substitutes.The first study (N = 130) showed that similarity information between cultured meat and meat resulted in the categorization of cultured meat as meat. This effect was not found for similarity information between cultured meat and meat substitutes. The second study (N = 200) ruled out that the name cultured meat influenced categorization. In contrast with study 1 similarity information between cultured meat and meat did not result in categorization, where similarity information between cultured meat and meat substitutes did. The third study (N = 152) suggested cultured meat was categorized as meat substitute, however, no evidence was found that providing similarity information between cultured meat and meat or meat substitutes influenced either categorization. Subsequent interviews within study 3 (N = 10) suggested that cultured meat overlaps substantially with the categories meat and meat substitutes and suggested that participants had difficulty to consistently categorize cultured meat. This may explain the apparently inconsistent results.The findings of this paper thus suggest that cultured meat does not effortlessly fit into the meat or meat substitute category.

The ability to perceive bodily signals of satiation and hunger is key for the self-regulation of food intake. Measuring this competence in large populations and/or in ecologically valid conditions requires valid self-reports. In this research, we tested the construct validity of two self-report measures of the Multidimensional Internally Regulated Eating Scale (MIRES); Sensitivity to physiological signals of satiation (SS) and Sensitivity to physiological signals of hunger (SH). In two pre-registered studies, we examined associations of SS and SH with behavioural indicators of the incidental ability to perceive the onset of satiation and hunger, respectively, but also with a generic self-report of interoceptive awareness (Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness - MAIA). The associations of MAIA with the behavioural indicators were also examined. In a healthy sample of 113 males/females (19–68 years), SS was not associated with satiation threshold as measured with the water load test in the laboratory (Study 1). Likewise, in a healthy sample of 107 females (18–27 years), SH was not associated with hunger threshold as measured with the preload test in a semi-controlled setting (Study 2). Neither MAIA was associated with the thresholds, but was positively associated with SS and SH, providing preliminary evidence for their construct validity.

With the increasing scarcity of natural resources, the ability to maintain quality standards during resource-scarce times becomes more critical for business performance. Theories on managing resource scarcity cannot be easily tested in contexts where resources are still abundant. This study therefore turns to an emerging market context in which natural resource availability naturally varies strongly between seasons, namely, that of Ethiopian pastoralists who for many generations learned to adapt to natural resource scarcity. Central to our theory is the natural resource deployment capability, which is the ability of a business to make efficient and effective use of available resources to maintain business performance during resource-scarce times. Using three-wave longitudinal data from 120 pastoral family-based livestock businesses, the study shows that when resources are scarce or extremely scarce, market knowledge helps to better deploy the scarce natural resources, leading to higher product quality. The findings imply that businesses with a better understanding of markets have stronger natural resource deployment capability. The lesson for businesses that are confronted with approaching resource scarcity is therefore to strengthen their ability to deploy resources efficiently and effectively by strengthening their market knowledge in which such capability is rooted.

Data belonging to paper https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/12/4352/htm

With the use of virtual reality, this study investigates the potential for popularity cues to stimulate consumers to choose healthier products (versus regular products) within product categories in a supermarket context. Popularity may increase perceived product quality and perceived certainty about that quality. Healthier alternatives (i.e., light products) within a category often have a taste disadvantage compared to regular counterparts as a result of their trimmed down nutrient profiles (low in fat, sugar or salt). Because consumers are more uncertain about the taste of these light products, a popularity cue may have a larger effect on product choice for these options than on the choice for regular products. This hypothesis is tested in an experiment using virtual reality to realistically display a supermarket context. In the main experiment, a sample of 300 consumers was asked to shop for specific groceries, using existing brands and products. The results demonstrate that consumers are more likely to choose light products when these are combined with a popularity cue. In contrast, the popularity cue did not affect choice for the regular alternatives. These results have important implications for research, and for public-policy makers and food retailers that aim to stimulate healthful consumption.

This study explores the motivations, opportunities, and abilities that consumers have for reducing food waste in everyday contexts that involve competing (food-related) goals. The framework of motivations, opportunities, and abilities is used to disentangle the complex array of factors that contribute to food waste. Results from 24 focus groups conducted in four European countries reveal that household food waste is the unintended result of balancing multiple competing goals. The results also indicate that abilities and opportunities influence the ease with which consumers can reduce food waste and act upon other goals (to which they assign greater value). These insights imply that, in addition to strengthening the importance that consumers attach to reducing food waste, interventions should focus on providing opportunities and abilities that will enable consumers to comply with multiple goals, including food-waste reduction.

Many people struggle with the classical choice of eating a mouth-watering snack versus a healthier product. One of the reasons behind this is that unhealthier products are appealing for their direct gratification; they deliver pleasure. The present research investigates the effect of mental simulation as a relatively new strategy to possibly shift the balance between direct gratification and the consideration of longer-term benefits necessary to make healthier choices. Specifically we distinguish between imagining the consumption process versus the outcome of eating a specific product, hereafter referred to as mental simulations. In two studies, we show that participants under process simulation, i.e., imagining the process of eating, had a higher desire for the imagined product compared to a control condition, but in a choice task between a healthy and an unhealthier product, more people chose the unhealthier product over the healthier one. On the other hand, outcome simulation, i.e., imagining the outcome of eating, also generated a higher desire for the imagined product, but in this case people chose the healthier option. In terms of underlying process, we explored the role of valence of the imagined experience on desire for the imagined product. This is the first study giving insights into the processes that could be behind the impact of mental simulation on desire and food choices. Although the results are not conclusive, we propose that further research in attentional biases, and possibly emotional activation could enlighten the effect of mental simulation in food desires and choice between healthy and unhealthy alternatives.

Many consumers express concerns about the welfare of animals in agriculture, but often refrain from purchasing animal-friendly alternatives that address their concerns. To support consumers in making choices in line with their values and attitudes, this study approaches consumer animal-friendly product choice as a dilemma between maximizing the buyer's self-interest and maximizing societal interest. To address this social dilemma, we developed and tested positioning strategies that reinforce the animal welfare label with complementary consumption values (functional, emotional, social, and epistemic). The results from a choice experiment with Dutch chicken meat shoppers showed that two strategies—emotional and epistemic—effectively increase consumer value perceptions. These insights imply that animal-friendly products positioned to invoke emotion or curiosity drive consumers towards animal-friendly product choices, and that these strategies are most effective for consumers who base their choice solely on maximizing either self-interest or societal interest.

Many adolescents have poor eating habits. As a major part of their caloric intake takes place at school, the present study aims to examine the effect of increasing the availability of healthier foods in school canteens on sales, student attitude and self-reported behaviour. A quasi-experimental study was carried out at two vocational schools in the Netherlands over a 10-month period, where the visible share of healthier products was gradually or abruptly increased from 60% to 80%. Outcome measures were sales data for healthier and less healthy foods and drinks in the canteens, as well as surveys. The proportion of healthier products sold increased from 31.1% during the baseline period to 35.9% in the final period. A gradual increase led to higher relative sales of healthier products (40%) than an abrupt change (34.5%). Survey data showed that students’ moderate satisfaction remained insensitive to the changes over time. Overall, results suggest that increasing the availability of healthier products in school canteens leads to small positive changes in sales of products, particularly in the product groups beverages and sandwiches. A gradual introduction may ensure that students slowly get used to assortment changes

Many times, desire possesses us and impedes us from making healthier food choices. From a grounded cognition perspective, we investigated the role of two types of mental simulation (process and outcome) in desire and food choice to understand the processes that modulate them and find strategies that encourage healthier food choices. In addition to these explicit measures, we used two implicit methods to measure approach-avoidance tendencies and visual attention. Our results showed that imagining the consumption of vice and virtue foods increased desire for the product imagined and seemed to favor the choice of a vice food. However, at an implicit level, the motivation to approach and avoid food products was neutral. Imagining the post-consumption of a vice food decreased desire for the imagined food and although it tempted people at an implicit level, it made people more prone to choose a virtue food. When a vice food was imagined, attentional bias increased for all types of food regardless of the simulation. When a virtue food was imagined, there was no effect on choice, motivation nor attentional bias. In conclusion, simply imagining certain foods is a potential solution for promoting healthier and thoughtful choices.

This data was used for the redaction of the project deliverable "D2.1 : General guidelines; barriers and opportunities associated to consumers", which are general guidelines describing barriers and opportunities in terms of innovative food packaging for consumers in Europe. Moreover, this data is from the scientific publication “ Misalignments between users and designers as source of inspiration: A novel hybrid method for physical new product development ” ., This data was used for the redaction of the project deliverable "D2.1 : General guidelines; barriers and opportunities associated to consumers", which are general guidelines describing barriers and opportunities in terms of innovative food packaging for consumers in Europe. Moreover, this data is from the scientific publication “ Misalignments between users and designers as source of inspiration: A novel hybrid method for physical new product development ” .