Consumers' Perception towards Organic Products before and after the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study in Bihor County, Romania.

Organic products have grown ever more popular in recent years due to increased concerns regarding one's health, the environment, and sustainability. The COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated this growth, prompting producers to adapt to a rapidly growing market while maintaining the same standard of quality. We have conducted a questionnaire-based pilot study on 190 organic food consumers from Bihor county, Romania, in order to analyze the main factors influencing customers' beliefs regarding organic food consumption, as well as assess the extent to which their consumption frequency changed after the pandemic. A principal component analysis was performed, dividing the factors into two categories referring to intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics of the products, respectively. It was noticed that the most important cues were ranked the same by our 190 respondents, regardless of their socio-demographical background. At the same time, people who consumed organic products more frequently before the pandemic have either maintained or increased their consumption, while more indifferent consumers maintained or decreased the proportion of organic foods in their diet.

Comparison of the Purchasing Behaviour of Polish and United Kingdom Consumers in the Organic Food Market during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The main objective of the study was to compare young consumer purchasing behaviour towards organic food in Poland (PL) and the United Kingdom (UK), countries with different levels of organic market maturity. The study was conducted by means of an online survey questionnaire during the COVID-19 pandemic between December 2020 and February 2021. The sample consisted of 862 PL and 161 UK consumers. 31% of PL respondents and 58.4% of UK respondents indicated they purchase organic products. Descriptive statistics, the Mann-Whitney U test and the two proportion Z test were used for statistical analyses. The results indicate that young consumers pay particular attention to the freshness and quality of consumed products. Concern for their own health and that of their loved ones, as well as the desire to eat better-quality products were the main motivations for the respondents to purchase organic products. Organic vegetables and fruits, eggs, dairy products, and meat and meat products, were among the most frequently purchased products in the studied cohorts. Experts (e.g., a dietitian, physician) were declared to be the first source of information concerning food products for young consumers. Next, family members were indicated. Social media content (PL respondents) and information from websites managed by institutions (UK respondents) were mentioned as the third source. UK consumers preferred short supply chains. The present study can be used by government bodies and companies to select the most effective communication channels for education and advertising and to develop effective commercial strategies aimed at young consumers.

Healthy Food on the Twitter Social Network: Vegan, Homemade, and Organic Food.

Online social networks have become an everyday aspect of many people's lives. Users spend more and more time on these platforms and, through their interactions on social media platforms, they create active and passive digital footprints. These data have a strong potential in many research areas; indeed, understanding people's communication on social media is essential for understanding their attitudes, experiences, behaviors and values. Researchers have found that the use of social networking sites impacts eating behavior; thus, analyzing social network data is important for understanding the meaning behind expressions used in the context of healthy food. This study performed a communication analysis of data from the social network Twitter, which included 666,178 messages posted by 168,134 individual users. These data comprised all tweets that used the #healthyfood hashtag between 2019 and 2020 on Twitter. The results revealed that users most commonly associate healthy food with a healthy lifestyle, diet, and fitness. Foods associated with this hashtag were vegan, homemade, and organic. Given that people change their behavior according to other people's behavior on social networks, these data could be used to identify current and future associations with current and future perceptions of healthy food characteristics.

Motivation-based segmentation of game meat consumers: A look at the beliefs of food consumers during the COVID-19 crisis in China.

OBJECTIVES: This research aims to explore the factors motivate consumers to eat game meat during a multi-state disease outbreak. METHODS: It proposes a segmentation of consumers based on their attitudes toward and reveals the consumers' food beliefs that motivate their actions. Three segments of game meat consumers were identified: identity seekers, health seekers, and taste seekers. RESULTS: A survey of the potential impact that the COVID-19 crisis has on these three clusters' future food choices showed that the identity and health seekers are more open to a change in food choices. However, the taste seekers are less likely to be influenced by external factors. CONCLUSIONS: This research indicates that for the policymakers, the key is to take game meat consumers as an effective intervention entry point. It is crucial to facilitate healthy food choices and to promote socially- and culturally-appropriate food beliefs by improving public awareness of the risks of game meat, and invest in organic food. RESEARCH IMPLICATIONS: This research provides new insights into the food beliefs of game meat consumers via motivation-based segmentation.

Changes in the consumption of foods characterising the Mediterranean dietary pattern and major correlates during the COVID-19 confinement in Italy: results from two cohort studies.

We investigated the effect of confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic on the consumption of foods characterising the Mediterranean dietary pattern (MDP) and its major correlates in two Italian population-based cohorts comprising 3161 subjects (mean age 57.7 ± 15.4 y). At population level, 38.8% of participants reported an improvement of diet quality during the first nationwide lockdown. Healthful dietary changes were associated with older age (ß = 0.41; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.08, 0.73 for 56-65 vs. 18-39 y), greater wealth (ß = 0.45; 0.01, 0.89 for >40,000 ≤ 60,000 vs. ≤ 10,000 EUR/y), increased physical activity (ß = 0.52; 0.22, 0.81) and reduced body weight (ß = 0.36; 0.11, 0.62). Switching to healthy eating was also related to increased consumption of organic (ß = 1.24; 0.88, 1.60) and locally-grown food (ß = 0.74; 0.51, 0.96). The first Italian lockdown led, in a substantial part of the population, to higher intake of foods characterising a MDP; this was also accompanied by healthier lifestyle and more sustainable food choices.

Generational Differences in Perceptions of Food Health/Risk and Attitudes toward Organic Food and Game Meat: The Case of the COVID-19 Crisis in China.

In December 2019, a novel laboratory-confirmed coronavirus (2019-nCoV) infection, which has caused clusters of severe illnesses, was first reported in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, China. This foodborne illness, which reportedly most likely originated in a seafood market where wild animals are sold illegally, has transmitted among humans through close contact, across the world. The aim of this study is to explore health/risk perceptions of and attitudes toward healthy/risky food in the immediate context of food crisis. More specifically, by using the data collected from 1008 respondents in January 2020, the time when China was hit hard by the "Corona Virus Disease 2019" (COVID-19), this study investigates the overall and different generational respondents' health/risk perceptions of and attitudes toward organic food and game meat. The results reveal that, firstly, based on their food health and risk perceptions of healthy and risky food, the respondents' general attitudes are positive toward organic food but relatively negative toward game meat. Secondly, older generations have a more positive attitude and are more committed to organic food. Younger generations' attitude toward game meat is more negative whereas older generations attach more importance to it because of its nutritional and medicinal values. In addition, this research also indicates that the COVID-19 crisis influences the respondents' perceptions of and attitudes toward organic food and game meat consumption. However, the likelihood of its impact on older generations' future change in diets is smaller, which implies that older generations' food beliefs are more stable.

Consumers' Intention to Adopt Blockchain Food Traceability Technology towards Organic Food Products.

Establishing a blockchain food traceability system (BFTS) is increasingly important and urgent to resolve the contradiction between consumers' intention regarding safe food selections and the spread of polluted foods. Using the advantages of blockchain, such as immutability, decentralization, openness, and anonymity, we can build trusted food traceability systems based on these important characteristics. With reliable information, traceability from production to sales can effectively improve food safety. In this research, multiple models, namely, the information success model (ISS) and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) are formed into a conceptual integrated framework to study the intentions' influenced factors of BFTS technology for Chinese consumers to help ensure food safety and the quality of Chinese organic food products. A face-to-face questionnaire survey with 300 valid responses was analyzed by Partial Least Square from the Chinese consumers focusing on the organic food products. This study found that the attitude and perceived behavioral control qualities significantly and positively affect the usage intention in adopting BFTS, while the subjective norms are positively but not significantly correlation with the usage intention in using BFTS. The above results will inform suggestions for productors and academics along with implications to promote BFTS' usage intention.