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. 2019 Dec 25;17(1):169.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph17010169.

Consumer Understanding of Food Quality, Healthiness, and Environmental Impact: A Cross-National Perspective

Dacinia Crina Petrescu  1   2 , Iris Vermeir  2 , Ruxandra Malina Petrescu-Mag  3
Affiliations

Consumer Understanding of Food Quality, Healthiness, and Environmental Impact: A Cross-National Perspective

Dacinia Crina Petrescu et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

The last few decades testify that consumers' concerns for healthier lifestyles and environment care are driving forces for reshaping food buying intentions and their perspectives on food quality. The present study identifies the importance that consumers attach to quality, health, and environment selected cues of purchased food products. More precisely, to elicit preferences for social, environmental, and qualitative food cues, a survey instrument was developed and applied on 797 Belgian and Romanian consumers. Our findings suggest that investigated consumers most frequently use freshness, taste, and appearance to evaluate food quality. The use frequency of food quality cues related to health is primarily influenced by the attention paid to food quality. The most relevant cues of food healthiness are ingredients, nutrition facts, and additives and for food environmental impact are packaging, food origin, and production type. It is concluded that food quality receives high attention both from Belgian and Romanian consumers and health and environment related cues can be used as a means of improving consumer health and environmental protection.

Keywords: Belgium; Romania; consumers; food environmental impact; food healthiness; food quality cues; food quality evaluation.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Model of observed determinants of the use frequency of food quality cues related to health, based on the results of standard linear regression.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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