Organic consumption is a way to promote sustainable agriculture while using fewer single-use products also reduces the burden of trash in the environment. Previous studies found that consumers’ pro-environmental behaviors are significantly positively correlated with organic consumption. However, the results are based on surveys expressed on the Likert scale and rely on participants’ imperfect retrospective memory of past organic purchases. In this study, we investigate the environmental motivation that leads consumers to purchase organic products using actual consumption data. In general, consumers buy organic products to avoid pesticides and chemicals for health reasons and/or to support more environmentally-friendly agriculture. The level of disposable product consumption is assumed to represent one’s environmental concern. Due to the presence of reverse causality of organic consumption and disposable product consumption, we employ a control function method to eliminate the endogeneity issue. Our result shows a significantly negative causal effect of disposable product consumption on organic consumption, indicating that organic consumption arises from care for the environment. It is found that a 10% increase in disposable product expenditure share causes an 8-percentage point decrease in the proportion spent on organic consumption.

This publication examines the recent inflation in orange juice prices and consumer responses using Nielsen scanner and Orange Juice tracker datasets. Orange juice prices experienced high inflation, peaking at 14.1% in January 2023, leading to decreased sales in both volume and dollars. Consumers are aware of the ongoing inflation in orange juice prices and reduced their orange juice purchases in quantity and frequency instead of discontinuing consumption altogether. Despite the significant barrier of high prices, the proportions of active orange juice consumers and those with a positive perception of orange juice remained steady and strong. Marketing efforts emphasizing the health benefits of orange juice continue to be crucial in sustaining consumer perception and demand.

This study examines the spillover effect of California's 2016 single-use bag ban (SB 270) on unregulated single-use plastics (SUPs) like cutlery, cups, and plates. We observed an insignificant 4.8% decrease in SUP sales over the entire post-policy period, but a larger 8.1% drop in the second post-year, which was only marginally significant. The findings suggest weak spillover effects from such environmental policies, indicating that direct regulations on certain environmentally harmful products might be more effective if jurisdictions aim to prohibit citizens from excessive use, rather than relying on the positive spillover effect from existing policies.

The Standards of Identity (SOI) for food may prevent the adoption of the strategies that help sustain the development of some food industries. This study provides comprehensive insights into the possibility of regulation changes with SOI for orange juice from consumer perspectives. Results show that the juice blends with 50% orange juice and 50% tangerine juice received the highest sensory scores. However, most consumers do not think juice blends with less than 70% orange juice can be called orange juice. The WTP for juice blends with less than 70% orange juice also decreases significantly. The results provide strong support for modifying the current SOI for orange juice. In addition, the ratio of 70% orange juice and 30% non-orange juice (tangerine/mandarin) is an appropriate threshold for starting the change to the SOI for orange juice. Successful modification to food SOI should consider its impact on both food quality and consumer perceptions.

The Florida orange juice industry has experienced great challenges-declining orange juice consumption and a domestic supply shortage that has led to increasing imports over the past decade. As growers look for a foothold, the question remains whether it is better to continue promoting orange juice (OJ) sales by focusing on the Florida "brand" or whether orange juice, in general, should be promoted using a federal marketing program. This study aims to identify the value of promoting "Florida" on OJ products to help the industry understand the potential benefits of enhancing the image of "Florida" in consumers' perceptions of OJ.

The food industry has been innovative in developing new products and services in response to the increasing demand for healthy and convenient food. Meal kits, a growing segment in the market, provide pre-measured bundles of raw ingredients with recipe cards for a complete home-cooked meal. However, to ensure food safety and quality, meal kits sold online come with a lot of packaging, creating waste. This study examines the market for meal kits as an example of healthy and convenient food, paying particular attention to the impact of packaging waste on consumer behavior. First, the willingness to pay for key attributes of meal kits is estimated, including whether the meal kit is ordered on meal kit websites or purchased at grocery stores. Second, the impact of providing eco-friendly packaging on the choice of purchasing platforms (online vs. offline) is investigated. Based on 1,217 primary grocery shoppers in the US, results reveal that consumers have a higher willingness to pay for meal kits sold at grocery stores, with organic, local, and pre-cut ingredients. The provision of fully recyclable insulation packaging helps consumers feel more positive regarding online meal kit packaging. However, it does not lead to any changes in the preference of purchasing platforms, showing a robust preference for buying meal kits at grocery stores.

Faced with reduced domestic supply, competition from imports, and high production costs, the Florida citrus industry and Florida growers need to understand how consumers perceive Florida-produced orange juice and whether they value it more than OJ produced elsewhere. We conducted a national survey to understand consumers' perceptions and confirmed that consumers have a superior perception of Florida OJ, which could lead to higher rates of willingness-to-buy and willingness-to-pay.

While food biotechnology has been widely applied and benefited the food and agriculture sector, community acceptance of biotechnology is still low. The factors that drive consumer rejection of food biotechnology have been well studied, but knowledge on the factors that drive willingness to purchase, particularly on an international level, is limited. This study aims to identify driving factors for respondents’ willingness to purchase fresh fruit produced with biotechnology, using an international survey conducted in the US, Canada, UK, France, and South Korea. While the overall willingness to purchase biotechnology produced fruit is low across countries, French consumers have the highest rate of willingness to purchase biotechnology produced fresh fruit among studied countries, followed by South Korea. The factors influencing respondents’ willingness to purchase include demographics, lifestyle, and shopping behavior. While respondents behave differently across countries, factors like environmental awareness, self-reported healthiness, and habits of eating away from home, have been found to enhance the willingness to purchase biotechnology produced fruit across countries.

Increased consensus among gerontologists exist on the need to pay greater attention to the reciprocal relationship between the social and spatial in order to understand the construction of aged identity and everyday lives of old people. With urbanization, spaces are increasingly age-graded and as a consequence, urban elders are socially isolated from the community. In this study, we examine the social interaction patterns in various places specifically designated for the elderly, such as the Senior Center, Senior Welfare Center, and Hall for the Aged in Seoul. Main purpose of this study is to understand everyday life experiences of space the elderly people residing in the city go through. Data were gathered through qualitative, case study method. Results show that such spaces were important sites for social interaction for urban elderly who lacked social spaces after retirement and active parenting role. Also, it was shown that each place presents different contexts for social interactions and certain components of social class differences existed. Heterogeneity within the participants of each place was also observed. Quite strong stereotypes about certain places were also observed among the urban elders. Based on these results, importance of developing a 'community perspective' in the study of old age is discussed.