Sustainable food consumption practices: Insights into consumers’ experiences

Abstract

In recent years, the increasing consumer concern towards food safety, environmental sustainability and social justice issues have stimulated new consumption practices more oriented towards social, economic, and environmental sustainability [1–3]. This includes the growing consumers’ preference for organic food, local food, and other sustainable food and beverage consumption (Contribution 1) [ 4], as well as the spread of alternative distribution chains, which emphasise the importance of local food productions [ 5 ], the short-distance transportation of food, and the direct relationship between consumers and producers, although, as Kwil and colleagues (Contribution 2) highlighted in this Special Issue, “local” is still an ambiguous term in the food domain. Relatively to organic consumption, which represents one of the prominent examples of sustainable consumption practices, Rizzo, and colleagues (Contribution 3) emphasized, in this Special Issue, how the growing consumers’ interest in organic products is not only due to their desire to protect the environment or sustain rural areas, but the perceived positive impact on human health of organic food consumption has been shown as the main driver of consumer preferences for organic extra-virgin olive oil. The preference for health the attribute has also been highlighted by Butcher and colleagues (Contribution 4), as well as by Buth and colleagues (Contribution 5), among Romanian urban consumers of ecological food products, and by Nagy-Pércsi and Fogarassy (Contribution 6) for organic consumers in the Hungarian market. In addition, Testa and colleagues (Contribution 7) showed that the trend toward the preference for the health attribute also involved the consumer’s convenient orientation and is not linked only to green products. In particular, the authors also found that the category of ready-to-eat products, especially fresh-cut fruits, is affected by health-conscious consumers.