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This study explores how a Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) consumption tendency, an external stimulus emerging from broader socio-environmental and cultural contexts that promote health, ecological awareness, and social responsibility, affects consumers’ intentions to incorporate mycoproteins into low red meat diets. The central hypothesis is that LOHAS consumption patterns act as a key driver in modulating psycho-attitudinal factors that either facilitate or inhibit the adoption of mycoproteins as a sustainable alternative to red meat. Data were collected through a cross-sectional survey administered to a randomly selected sample of 951 Italian consumers of red meat and mushrooms. To explore the factors affecting consumers’ decision-making process to consume mycoproteins the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) was used as the main theoretical framework. The survey explored participants’ consumption habits related to mushrooms and red meat, the influence of LOHAS, perceptions of nutritional content, environmental sustainability, and barriers to adopting mycoproteins. The data were analysed employing Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) to examine the relationships between constructs. Findings reveal that LOHAS consumption tendency serves as stimulus that positively influences consumer perceptions of mycoproteins’ nutritional value and environmental benefits, while barriers related to meat dependency and perceived value significantly hinder adoption. This study contributes by framing the LOHAS as an external socio-cultural stimulus within the S-O-R framework. By linking societal sustainability values with individual psychological processes, the research offers a novel perspective on the drivers of alternative proteins adoption. The findings provide theoretical insights into the interaction between value orientations and behavioural intentions, while offering practical guidance for policies and communication strategies aimed at promoting sustainable dietary transitions.

The literature suggests that consumers who purchase local foods tend to maintain more sustainable and healthier diets and are more likely to engage in fitter lifestyles. While this holds true for many local food products sold through short supply chains (such as eggs, milk, fruits, and vegetables), the role of a widely debated food like local red meat remains unclear. Specifically, it is uncertain whether health-related attitudes and justifications for meat consumption vary based on the frequency of red meat consumption among consumers of local red meat. This study aims to examine the influence of health attitudes and meat attachment on local red meat consumption among Italian consumers, differentiating between those who consume red meat within and those who exceed the World Health Organization's recommended nutritional guidelines. A stratified sample of 1135 Italian red meat consumers responsible for household food purchases was used for this analysis. To assess the data, a logistic regression model with robust standard errors was applied. The findings indicate that health attitudes drive consumer behaviour regardless of the overall quantity of meat consumed. However, only consumers with low meat consumption tend to justify their consumption of local red meat, while justifications for meat consumption decrease as meat intake increases. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the local red meat market and provides valuable insights for companies to tailor their marketing strategies and product value propositions to consumer perceptions. Additionally, the findings can inform policymakers in designing interventions aimed at reducing excessive meat consumption.

Nowadays, more and more consumers show a growing interest in healthy food products that may help to maintain or improve human health, such as honey. Honey has always represented a fundamental component of traditional medicine in many world cultures. However, only thanks to several studies carried out in the last years, its use is considered as an alternative and complementary medicine, namely apitherapy. In this way, honey is recognized increasingly by consumers not only as a natural alternative to refined sugar but as healthy food, as shown by determining an increase of its consumption worldwide. This study aims to explore the consumers’ determinants of honey consumption, trying to understand whether, and how much, therapeutic properties of honey affect the Italian consumers’ choices. The findings of this study, although exploratory, provide information on which quality characteristics influence honey consumption in Italy, revealing that, among quality attributes, the therapeutic properties of honey play an important role in affecting consumers’ behavior, followed by income, variety and taste. This could have some implications for producers and marketers as this information could contribute to defining effective marketing strategies for communicating to consumers the quality attributes of honey and its therapeutic benefits.

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.

Our paper focuses on Solidarity Purchase Group (SPG) participants located in a highly urbanized area, with the aim to investigate the main motivations underlining their participation in a SPG and provide a characterization of them. To this end, we carried out a survey of 795 participants involved in 125 SPGs in the metropolitan area of Milan (Italy). Taking advantage of a questionnaire with 39 questions, we run a factor analysis and a two-step cluster analysis to identify different profiles of SPG participants. Our results show that the system of values animating metropolitan SPG practitioners does not fully conform to that traditionally attributed to an alternative food network (AFN). In fact, considerations linked to food safety and healthiness prevail on altruistic motives such as environmental sustainability and solidarity toward small producers. Furthermore, metropolitan SPGs do not consider particularly desirable periurban and local food products. Observing the SPGs from this perspective, it emerges as such initiatives can flourish also in those places where the lack of connection with the surrounding territory is counterbalanced by the high motivation to buy products from trusted suppliers who are able to guarantee genuine and safe products, not necessarily located nearby.

The COVID-19 pandemic has upset everyone's normal daily activities, generating psychiatric disorders and changing consumers' preferences. Among others, the agri-food sector has experienced strong changes and, during the lockdown period, Italian consumers modified their purchasing habits in response to the fear and uncertainty generated by the spread of the virus. In order to find out the main consequences of the shock suffered during the period and to understand which factors have affected purchasing choices, an online survey was conducted on 286 Italian consumers. The results show that ethnocentrism has been the factor that most has influenced consumers' behavior during the lockdown period and that consumers will continue to prefer national agri-food products when pandemic will be over, constituting a deep change to future eating habits.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the main factors affecting the consumption of avocado fruit among Italian consumers. In order to respond to the aim of the study, an empirical survey was conducted through the submission of an online questionnaire to 327 consumers. An ordered logit econometric model was adopted to examine the relationship among some explanatory variables and the frequency of consumption of avocado fruit. The findings of this study show that the consumption of avocado fruit is affected by different factors, including fruit consumption habit, neophilia attitudes, and various intrinsic and extrinsic quality attributes (credence attributes in particular). The study deals with a little explored topic; therefore, the findings contribute to fill the gap in the existent literature, inasmuch as they enrich the discussion on consumers' preference for avocado fruit. However, further comparative research is clearly needed, as well as a larger research sample, to overcome limits to the external validity of the results and to investigate the analytical effort proposed in this article.

Innovation plays a key role in the success and sustainable development of businesses. The innovation process derives from the combination of personal skills and company resources that influence food company managers in their choices on innovation (the decision-making process). This study is an attempt to try to understand which psychological constructs affect innovation decision-making in the Hungarian food sector, using the empirical data from a 2017 survey conducted in Hungary among the largest food processing companies. Planned behavior theory (TPB) was applied to the study of factors affecting innovation decision-making. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used for data analysis. The results show that the positive attitude of Hungarian food business leaders towards innovation, evaluation of innovation and the strategic intention of placing innovative products and processes on the market have a positive relationship with innovation performance; however, the lack of adequate research skills, plus specific knowledge and skills is hindering the development of the hoped for process.

Local products and their distribution through short supply chains play a key role in the sustainable development of many rural areas, as affirmed by the 2030 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Agenda. Moreover, in the last years, more and more consumers have shown a specific interest towards local production, pushed by the need for healthy eating, protecting the environment, and boosting the local economy. However, the cultivation of local fruit varieties or ecotypes has considerably decreased in the last decades because of their low production potential. As a result, many farmers have been forced to replace local orchards with few worldwide grown cultivars, causing a loss of genetic agrobiodiversity. For instance, in Italy, the loquat market is composed of imported cultivars and local grown autochthonous fruits (ecotype). Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyze the chemical–physical and sensory qualities, as well as the determinants of Italian consumer preference towards local ecotype of loquat fruit compared to imported varieties. Results show that local ecotypes result in excellent physico-chemical and sensory attributes, and that place of purchase and taste are the most important factors influencing consumers’ preference towards local loquats. Therefore, the cultivation of loquat ecotypes, together with effective marketing strategies, could increase the competitiveness of certain Italian rural areas, where this crop has always played a significant role in the economy.

Foodborne diseases (FBDs) represent a worldwide public health issue, given their spreadability and the difficulty of tracing the sources of contamination. This report summarises the incidence of foodborne pathogens and toxins found in food, environmental and clinical samples collected in relation to diagnosed or suspected FBD cases and submitted between 2018 and 2020 to the Food Microbiology Unit of the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale del Lazio e della Toscana (IZSLT). Data collected from 70 FBD investigations were analysed: 24.3% of them started with an FBD diagnosis, whereas a further 41.4% involved clinical diagnoses based on general symptomatology. In total, 5.6% of the 340 food samples analysed were positive for the presence of a bacterial pathogen, its toxins or both. Among the positive samples, more than half involved meat-derived products. Our data reveal the probable impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the number of FBD investigations conducted. In spite of the serious impact of FBDs on human health and the economy, the investigation of many foodborne outbreaks fails to identify the source of infection. This indicates a need for the competent authorities to continue to develop and implement a more fully integrated health network.