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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.

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.

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.