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Over recent, circular economy literature has spread, but limited attention has been devoted to food consumption. In this chapter, we present a conceptual tool to approach circularity in food consumption, namely the circular food consumption practice (CFCP) framework. Literature on food waste management, social practice theory, circular business models, and sociotechnical transitions are the building blocks of the current framework. Such a framework is useful to analyze the potential implementation of a set of household activities fostering circular economy. Adopting an ecological perspective of food consumption, the framework reconnects households’ food-related behavior to its overall environmental implications; this perspective highlights also the role for circular economy of activities beyond recycling.

Cross-country analysis of consumers' acceptance towards FRG wines

The central point of the current perspective is that, besides traditional (e.g., information provision) and modern (e.g., nudging) approaches to steer consumer decision making processes towards circular businesses, a transformation of consumption culture is needed to achieve long-term sustainability.

Framework of circular food consumption practice (CFCP)

Circular Economy (CE) might be the paradigm to re-conceptualize future agri-food industries and recreate a balanced co-existence of ecological and economic systems. Research is then called to find solutions for transitioning into CE. The current paper will apply the theory of socio-technical transitions as a framework to build a step by step procedure to analyze and manage agri-food circular economy transitions and support stakeholders involved. The agro-ecological (cultivation and harvesting), agro-industrial (food processing) and consumption (food purchase) subsystems of agri-food supply chains are analysed to address the main challenges for the transition into CE. The current paper final goal is to generate an analytical framework, for practitioners and policy makers, to identify suitable technological, market, coordination and regulative solutions to orient future CE trajectories., Aestimum, 2020: Special Issue "Sustainable development and circular economy"

Participant attentiveness may represent a major concern for all researchers using online self-report survey data, as findings from non-diligent participants add noise and can significantly decrease results reliability. Therefore, attention checks have become a popular method in survey design across social sciences to capture careless or insufficient-effort of respondents, thus increasing quality of samples and the internal validity of the research. The aim of this note is to offer an overview and categorization of the different techniques adopted to flag inattentive respondents and present the potential drawbacks of not considering the issue in social sciences research.

Circular economy is a new approach to the economy-environment pairing that has the potential of a revolution in the history of economic development models. This model is opposed to the traditional production pattern in which resources are extracted, used to produce goods and, eventually, landfilled. Circular economy supports a complete recycling of materials and implies a complete reorganization of production systems in which all steps of value chains are planned in order to use waste as input of new productions. Furthermore, it implies that consumers actively participate for closing the loops. The general objective of this study is the implementation of an assessment of the circular economy applied to agri-food supply chains. It is aimed to generate insights about the challenges that the circular economy will face in the next future. If main constraints for the implementation of the circular economy could be better understood, then this knowledge could be used to better design interventions to create first prototypes of circular supply chains and support initiatives aimed to improve the environmental performances of the agri-food sector. Our results are the outcome of a conceptual process leading to the definition of a set of macro-categories of challenges for the circular economy. Furthermore, we deeply investigated the point of view of consumers and it was possible to identify drivers influencing their participation to a program embedded into a hypothetic agri-food circular supply chain.

While there is evidence of consumers’ interest in wine sustainability, acceptance of innovations in wine production is not guaranteed. The current study addresses this issue by analyzing consumers’ acceptance of fungus-resistant grape (FRG) wines, a sustainable innovation that can substantially reduce the need for chemical inputs in viticulture. To do so, by means of an online survey including large samples of regular wine drinkers in Italy (N = 752), the UK (N = 858) and the USA (N = 856), the study compares individuals’ preferences for conventional wines with preferences for FRG wines. The study also explores whether FRG wine acceptance is influenced by informal or formal purchase occasion, by different types of information regarding the product, and by individual attitudinal characteristics. The findings show a general acceptance of FRG wines among consumers. In particular, consumers’ preferences for FRG wines on formal occasions are not significantly different from their preferences for conventional wine, whereas on informal occasions, consumers prefer FRG wines over conventional wines. Regarding the impact of information on participant choice, participants informed about the potential effects of FRG on sensory wine characteristics had lower preferences for FRG wines than those who read an information script regarding crop biodiversity. Last, individuals’ sustainability concerns and food technology neophobia had positive and negative influences on FRG acceptance, respectively. Overall, this research provides wineries, nurseries and policy-makers with important insights concerning the market potential of FRG wines in three key markets.

Islamic and Jewish laws forbid the stunning of animals before slaughtering, which is considered the least painful practice to kill farmed animals. The debate on ritual slaughtering has struggled over the years to conciliate the perspectives of religious and animal rights. However, this debate has disregarded to date that, whether animals are killed through laic or ritual slaughtering, they are farmed under industrial farm animal production (ifap) where their rights are often scarcely considered. Current point of view is a critical contribution to the debate on ritual slaughtering. Starting from current limitations of the debate as concerns its ethical and technical dimensions, the paper elaborates on the relevance that considering animal suffering under ifap would have in a more coherent debate. Our analysis highlights that despite the endeavour to select and regulate the best slaughtering method, animal conditions under ifap still represent the main challenge for the overall welfare of farmed animals. Thereby, beyond the conflict between animal and religious rights a latent problem of food choices exists, that involves both laic and religious communities. The paper suggests achieving a shared cultural and social acknowledgement of animal rights and finding solutions to spread extensive farming systems as the most urgent objectives to contribute to reducing the suffering of farmed animals.

There is increasing interest toward insects as an alternative protein source in Western countries even though, so far, most Western consumers react with disgust and rejection. The literature on consumer behavior has mainly investigated the willingness to consume insects with regard to human diet, revealing that providing information about the positive effects of edible insects and using familiar foods while ensuring that insects are not visible will increase the willingness to eat insects. What is still unclear are consumers preferences for specific insect-based products having different features in a non-hypothetical market. The current study analyzed 200 Italian consumers’ preferences for three insect-based products (carriers) such as pasta, cookies and chocolate bars through a non-hypothetical willingness to pay (WTP) elicitation mechanism, the Multiple Price List (MPL), in a mixed within/between experimental design. The influence of the different types of information on consumer choice and the main forces driving consumer preferences for insect-based food were tested. The findings reveal that different carriers generate different results in terms of WTP for conventional and insect-based versions of the products. Further, without being provided information, consumers deem insect-based products either equivalent (the same WTP for the two versions of pasta) or weakly inferior (lower WTP in the case of cookies and chocolate), while when information on the benefits of insect consumption is provided, consumers’ WTP increase for all the insect-based products analyzed. Finally, among the psychographic scales, Food Neophobia and Beliefs and Attitudes toward insects negatively affect the WTP for insect-based products.

In this article, we present and critically discuss the current and future key challenges of non-hypothetical experimental auctions (EA) to measure consumer preferences for new food products/attributes. The paper is composed by two complementary parts: a commentary of the core issues, identified in literature, related to internal and external validity of EA studies and a discussion of scholars' views (collected through a survey) on specific issues faced by EA research analysing consumer food preferences. Specific practical implications for EA studies performed by food researchers are also presented. Results highlight the opportunity to perform in-store experiments and the need to provide additional experimental details to allow replicability of research. Scholars also underline the increasing importance of a shared agreement on the use and regulation of deceptive practices in EA studies.

Among foods with credence attributes, food with “natural” components have received in the last years particular attention by consumers. This study applies the BDM incentive compatible mechanism to explore young (18–35 years old) consumers’ interest and willingness to pay for chewing gums having the natural attribute. Our analysis shows that over 68% of consumers are interested in the natural attribute and are willing to pay a price premium. We also find that consumers’ higher age and interest in the environment have significant impacts on consumers’ preferences for the natural attribute.

The current linear system of production and consumption is unsustainable. In the food sector, despite the fact that valuable natural resources are intensively used to produce and distribute food products, little is done to upcycle residues generated along the supply chain. Circular economy strategies are crucial for restructuring the take-make-dispose model through the active participation of all actors of supply chains. However, little is known about consumers’ willingness to participate in circular economy. A structured questionnaire was submitted to a representative sample of Italian households to assess the willingness of consumers to be actively involved in closed loops aiming at reducing food waste. Consumers are involved by returning their organic food waste to retailers in exchange for discounts on the purchase of animal products. The organic food waste returned enters in the production process of animal products. A choice experiment was designed to analyse alternative programs. Two scenarios were presented: one with a traditional technology (composting), and a second one with a radically innovative technology (insects as feed). Preferences and trade-offs, in monetary terms, among attributes were computed. Results depict a comprehensive portrait of the potential participation of consumers to closed loops inspired by the principles of circular economy.