Azzurra Annunziata

Sociodemographic Factors Differentiating the Consumer and the Motivations for Functional Food Consumption

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the (1) role of gender, age, and education in the evaluation of multidimensional criteria of the purchase of functional products, which were (a) quality and organoleptic attributes, (b) attributes of packaging and labeling, (c) healthful properties, (d) functional components, (e) base product (carrier) and (2) most important motives for the purchase and consumption of functional food among consumers of different sociodemographic profiles. Design: The data were collected in direct interviews. The sample (n = 200) consisted of 137 women and 63 men age 18–60 years. The research tool was a questionnaire divided into 4 sections. The first one included quality attributes. The second one included healthful properties, functional components, and carriers. The third one concerned the motives for purchasing functional food and included the consequences and values. In the fourth section the participants were asked about gender, age, and education. Results: Gender, age, and education differentiated the criteria influencing the decision to purchase functional food. Women, older people (35–60 years), and those with university education attach the greatest importance to naturalness, nutritional value, freshness, food safety, and quality guarantee. Clear differences between men and women appear in the field of functional components, which are significantly more important for women than for men. Gender, age, and education essentially differentiate the preferences for base product (carrier). Young men prefer meat products in the role of functional carriers. In turn, women and older men prefer cereal products as basic functional carriers. Young consumers are more open to high-technology food processing. Motivations are differentiated by age and gender. Young men, as opposed to women and older men, attach less importance to functional and psychological consequences: improvement of health, healthy eating, conscious choice, and health promotion. Women and older men are more interested in health safety and are more responsible for their health. Among young men, lower self-esteem can be found. Conclusion: The analysis conducted revealed that groups of consumers are significantly different from each other in the evaluation of the significance of each of the variables in the selection of functional food. Sociodemographic factors differentiate the motivations for consumption of functional food.

Consumer Understanding and Use of Health Claims: The Case of Functional Foods

As widely acknowledged functional foods (FFs) may contribute to improve human health due to the presence of specific components useful for their protective action against several diseases. However it is essential that consumers are able to comprehend and assess the properties of FFs health claims play a central role in helping consumers to select among food alternatives, beyond providing protection against unsupported or misleading statements about foods properties. At the same time health claims are the main marketing tool that the food industry could use to differentiate FFs from other products. Clearly, massive investments in research and development are necessary to enter the FF market segment, together with the possibility to protect innovation through patents. Current paper aims to examine factors influencing consumer understanding and use of food health claims on FFs, as well as providing several indications for developers, marketers and policy makers. After a brief review of the literature the results of a quantitative survey conducted online on 650 Italian consumers are presented. Results show that consumer use and understanding of health claims on FFs depend on different variables such as socio-demographic characteristics, knowledge and confidence with nutrition information but also wording and variables related specifically to the product. Furthermore, different segments with a diverse degree of use and understanding of health claims have been identified. Therefore, to boost market growth, more efforts are needed by policy makers and marketers to provide better information on nutrition and health aspects of FF using an approach capable to ensure truthful, significant and clear information. Finally some recent patents related to the FFs market with specific regard to components and/or functionality investigated in the current paper are reviewed.

Web marketing strategies of food producers in Italy: a competitive analysis

Among the various information and telecommunication technologies available today, internet is certainly the most innovative and useful in terms of marketing potentialities. However, it requires that enterprises (especially small and medium sized ones) develop specific strategies in order not to be excluded from the advantages offered by the virtual market. An empirical investigation, carried out by browsing the websites of 107, randomly selected, Italian companies engaged in the production of typical and traditional foods has shown that these firms invest very little in web marketing. Focusing their efforts on the internet only as a secondary promotion tool, while web-based direct selling is confined to market niches.

Alimentazione, salute e benessere del consumatore: da determinanti di scelta ad opportunità di mercato

The main aim of this paper is to analyse how time has modified the concept of food safety risk for consumers, determining, both, new regulatory developments, particularly related to information and consumer protection, and new market opportunities that facilitate the introduction of innovative products, including functional foods. Subsequently the work provides a brief review of the literature on consumers attitudes towards functional foods as a preamble to the empirical part of the study, where the results of a direct survey are presented in order to offer some indications to developers and marketers as well as government bodies that are interested in designing consumer communication strategies and effective health programs. The final section concludes with a discussion of the implications of the results and suggests some future research avenues.

Crowdsourcing in Wine Business: Co-Creation and Fundraising Experiences

Thanks to the development of Web 2.0 tools and applications, crowdsourcing-based business models, in which the ‘crowd’ takes on a proactive role in the markets, being engaged in co-creation of value and in funding producers and their projects, are emerging worldwide. The aim of this chapter is to achieve a deeper understanding of the opportunities offered by crowdsourcing in wine business. Given both the novelty of the phenomenon and the exploratory nature of this research, a qualitative multiple-case study approach is used with the purpose of presenting cases of major interest as benchmarks. Overall, crowdsourcing is ideally suited as both a new approach to the radically changing consumer profile and as a source of funding for small entrepreneurs facing difficulties in accessing other forms of financing.

Experimental Economics to Evaluate Consumer Preferences

Abstract This chapter is intended to guide readers in the comprehension of experimental economics mechanisms, and their underlying rationale, so the experimenter will be aware of how to choose, and effectively apply, the most appropriate method for her or his specific research objective. In particular, we focus on two of the most frequently applied incentive-compatible value elicitation mechanisms: nonhypothetical experimental auctions and multiple price list experiments.

The role of nutritional labeling in promoting healthier food choices: a review of the major issues in the EU

As the widespread rapid growth of diet-related diseases becomes a major public concern, nutritional labeling is increasingly considered a potential tool to support the goal of changing unhealthy eating habits while retaining consumer freedom of choice. This paper aims to contribute to the institutional debate on the effectiveness of nutritional labeling on the back or front of packaging in promoting healthier food choices, focusing on the EU. The major issues detected and discussed are based on a literature review of recent studies that have examined the limits and potentials of such tools. Finally, we discuss other promising application fields of nutritional labeling, such as on alcoholic beverages and restaurant menus, and present some directions for further research.

Alcohol Warnings and Moderate Drinking Patterns among Italian University Students: An Exploratory Study

The introduction of health warnings on labels to correct externalities associated with alcohol consumption is heavily debated and has been explored from different perspectives. The current paper aims to analyse the interest and attitudes of Italian university students regarding health warnings on alcoholic beverages and to verify the existence of segments that differ in terms of attitudes towards such warnings. Our results show that young consumers consider health warnings quite important, although the degree of perceived utility differs in relation to the type of warning. Cluster analysis shows the existence of three groups of young consumers with different degrees of attention and perceived utility of warnings on alcoholic beverages, but also in relation to drinking behaviour and awareness of social and health risks related to alcohol consumption. In brief, Italian young adults with moderate consumption behaviour view label warnings positively, while this attitude is weaker among younger adults and those with riskier consumption behaviours. Our findings, albeit limited and based on stated and not revealed data, support the need for appropriate tools to improve the availability of information among young adults on the risks of excessive alcohol consumption and increased awareness of the importance of moderate drinking.

The effect of monetary versus nonmonetary endowment on WTP in BDM auctions

We evaluate the effects of monetary and nonmonetary endowments on willingness to pay (WTP) bids in Becker–DeGroot–Marschak (BDM) experimental auctions. Results indicate that subjects provided with a monetary endowment bid more than those that received a nonmonetary endowment.

Nuove esigenze dei consumatori e strategie di valorizzazione integrata della carne di bufalo

The main objective of this paper is to provide guidance to the setting of innovative strategies for the effective exploitation of high quality food products. These strategies should be capable to respond to the new needs of consumers through the integration of environmental, social and territorial aspects of quality. In this regard the current work, focusing on the case of water buffalo meat, performs an analysis of the supply chain of water buffalo meat in Campania, and presents a critical review of the promotional and communication activities implemented since now, both by public and private entities, trying to understand success factors and development limits. Subsequently, through deep interviews to producers and retailers further details have been collected and evaluated. Moreover, a survey on 180 consumers residents in the Provinces of Naples, Avellino and Benevento, responsible of food shopping, has been performed with the aim of obtaining useful information to implement effective marketing strategies. Data were subjected to exploratory analysis, to provide a generic profile of the water buffalo meat consumer, and subsequently to cluster analysis to create homogeneous groups of consumers and identify the segments most interested to the product. Three different clusters were recognized: the first cluster (60% of respondents), was characterized by consumers that have never tried the product and are also completely uninformed on its properties and characteristics; the second cluster (14% of respondents) includes aware consumers, i.e. those who show a greater knowledge of the product and a higher frequency of consumption; the third cluster (26% of respondents) groups the occasional users, i.e. those who bought water buffalo meat only once or very sporadically and who define themselves as poorly informed on the product. Results highlight the need to activate effective communication strategies to foster the perception of the actual quality of the product, emphasizing its nutritional properties and health benefits in order to retain the occasional consumers and promoting its sensory characteristics to attract new consumers.