Browsing by Subject "consumer behavior"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Aesthetics of Produce: A systemic and design-based approach to reducing food waste
    (2022-12) Hwang, SunMin
    The invention of the baby carrot is an exemplary case that illustrates the power of design for solving a major problem with food waste. In the early 1990s, a farmer from California, Mike Yurosek, came up with the idea of machining leftover carrots to produce a new miniaturized form of carrot. This not only reduced the amount of unsellable carrots to be discarded, but it also created a whole new vegetable commodity market that is widely popular among kids and adults alike (Elizabeth Weise, 2004). This thesis is based on the strong belief that design thinking can bring about positive changes to food systems to remediate unnecessary food waste problems. Since the industrial revolution, we have been living in a world that has been designed for mass production and consumption. This ideology of “the more, the better” in industrial production and consumption has increased food wastefulness (Barber, 2014). As a result, a third of all food, equivalent to 1.3 billion tons, is lost or wasted each year globally, and in the U.S. alone, up to 40% of food supply, equivalent to 40 million tons of food, is estimated to be uneaten (Gunders, 2017). While food loss occurs at various stages of the food chain, consumers and retailers are mainly accountable for food waste in the US and other higher income countries. One of the major reasons identified by farmers and food organizations is the “imperfect” appearance of natural products (e.g., produce & fruits). Although they are perfectly edible, we, as consumers, tend to shy away from aesthetically displeasing looks of produce. To prevent this biased perception from creating more food loss and food waste in the future, it is crucial that we understand the specificity of consumer perception, and behavior associated with aesthetic factors of food. This research examines aesthetic principles of produce from the consumer’s perspective and provides the potential for seeking and applying design thinking to the problem of food being discarded due to cosmetic reasons. Existing literature on food aesthetics, psychology and perception-based studies demonstrate how visual aspects of food can have a significant impact on consumers’ perceptions. A myriad of studies uncovered the relationship between cosmetically imperfect produce and consumers’ preferences. Over the past decade, a growing number of studies began investigating effective strategies to combat food waste due to cosmetic imperfection (e.g., anthropomorphism, price reduction, graphic signage/linguistic solution). Yet none have explicated on the wide breadth of aesthetic standards and definitions for produce and their relationship to consumer needs, willingness-to-pay and purchase behavior. The lack of these understandings have caused delays in remediating food waste due to aesthetics reasons. This work uses mixed method research design and consists of three parts: 1) The first study captures the breadth of consumer perception on two produce types with varying aesthetic ranges. In this step, aesthetic attributes that have the most impact on consumers are identified. 2) The second study investigates the relationship between willingness-to-pay and average aesthetic ratings for three different types of produce. 3) The last study tests consumers’ market behavior in relation to the consumers’ willingness-to-pay. In all three studies, intended functionality of the produce was also examined. Results from the three studies demonstrated that consumers perceive produce aesthetics from a more functional perspective. The first study revealed surface imperfections to have the most impact on consumer perception for tuber type produce. The second study demonstrated that the rate of depreciation for consumers’ willingness to pay for cosmetically imperfect produce is consistently lower than the rate of reduction in average aesthetic rating. In the last study, the majority of the participants were not willing to trade their regular looking potatoes for the cosmetically imperfect produce for a small monetary value. This research illuminates our true needs regarding produce aesthetics, which is not one that is driven by the force of the industry, outdated policy & guidelines, or our biological instinct. The implications of this research can be summarized in three parts: 1) Produce aesthetics can be re-defined from the functional perspective. For example, a perfect tuber crop could be described by the least amount of surface imperfections that would allow a person to peel the surface more easily. 2) A redirection of consumer needs is suggested for food sellers, marketers, and designers. They can distinguish their strategies for the cosmetically imperfect produce by developing separate venues and locations, which helps consumers draw more attention to their intended purposes. 3) Revision of policies and guidelines for filtering produce is strongly advised to accommodate more practical and more modern consumer needs. For example, inspection criteria that are not directly related to edibility and the safety of produce should be eliminated as it is detrimental in creating a flawed perception to the consumers. In conclusion, stakeholders and designers in the food industry should work in tandem to reformulate our flawed perception to cosmetically imperfect produce by making a wider range of aesthetic diversity acceptable to consumers. Ultimately, consumers should perceive what they know as “ugly” now, as “normal” in the future. This would allow us to build a more sustainable environment for future generations.
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    Consumer Behavior and Environmental Policy: Applications to Issues in Food Waste and Organics Recycling
    (2019-07) Dusoruth, Vaneesha
    A large proportion of the food produced in the United States is wasted throughout the supply chain, with households accounting for the highest proportion. In Chapter 1, building on the existing literature, this paper develops a structural model to determine the economic relationship between household food waste reduction efforts, organics recycling efforts, and the opportunity cost of time in a public goods framework. In Chapter 2, we classify consumers in distinct classes dictated by their food related routines such as grocery shopping and kitchen management. We then investigate the roles of products attributes, especially cosmetic appearance and expiration dates, on food waste tendencies across these different classes of consumers. We examine whether underlying risk preferences and stated risk perceptions have an impact on those food waste propensities. In addition to prevention strategies that curb the negative impacts of food waste, recycling presents an opportunity to convert environmentally harmful materials into valuable economic downstream products such as compost. In chapter 3, we conduct a randomized control trial to examine the impact on information on organics recycling behavior and food waste generation tendencies in a local community.
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    Paradox Brands: Can Brands with Contradictory Meanings be More Appealing to Consumers?
    (2019-05) Rodas, Maria
    One of the most important tenets of brand strategy is that successful brands have a clear and distinct focus, devoid of any contradictory or conflicting elements. This belief originated with the introduction of the Unique Selling Proposition, which states that successful branding involves a single, clearly expressed claim (Reeves 1961). Over time, it became firmly established as marketing embraced the concept of positioning, where brand managers were taught that successful brands occupy a clearly defined, relatively simple, and unambiguous position in their categories (Trout and Ries 1986). However, as brands and markets evolve over time, there is often a need to expand the meanings associated with brands to sharpen their differentiation versus other brands, appeal to new consumer segments, and resonate with changes in cultural values and consumer tastes (Keller 1999). At times, these new meanings add elements that are contradictory to each other. For example, Land Rover positions itself as both rugged and sophisticated, bridging luxury and hardworking functionality (Adweek 2013). Clearly, the notion of ruggedness and hardworking is contradictory to the notion of sophisticated and luxury. Yet, I find across two essays that this inherent contradiction in the brand need not be viewed negatively, and such a brand can be very successful in the marketplace. Thus, my dissertation challenges the long-held assumption that brands with clear and consistent brand meanings are more appealing to consumers. Specifically, I show across ten studies that certain consumers actually prefer brands that incorporate contradictory meanings, which I refer to as paradox brands. I present individuals with descriptions of brands that include a set of brand personality traits or brand values. These elements are contradictory to one another in the case of a paradox brand (e.g., personality traits: rugged and sophisticated) or consistent with one another in the case of a traditional non-paradox brand (e.g., personality traits: rugged and outdoorsy). I then assess individuals’ evaluation of the given brand, and find that paradox brands are often evaluated more favorably than non-paradox brands. My dissertation consists of two essays, which examine two potential conceptual frameworks that might explain how people respond to brands with contradictory brand elements. The first essay examines the effect of dialectical thinking on the evaluation of paradox brands. Across seven studies, I find that consumers who embrace a dialectical style of thinking, and are thus more comfortable with contradiction, evaluate paradox brands more favorably than non-paradox brands. I find that this is because paradox brands fit well with their style of thinking, resulting in more favorable evaluations for paradox than non-paradox brands. The second essay looks at bicultural consumers and examines the effect of cognitive flexibility on the evaluation of paradox brands. Across three studies I find that bicultural consumers evaluate paradox brands more favorably than non-paradox brands, and that this is driven by their higher levels of cognitive flexibility.