The effect of food shape abnormality on purchase intentions in China☆
Introduction
Throwing away food is like stealing from the table of those who are poor and hungry.
—Pope Francis (McKenna, 2013)
Food waste has become a popular media topic, because of its relationship with sustainability: If food is wasted, the resources employed such as usage of energy (e.g. transportation), chemicals (e.g. pesticides, fertilizers), water, land, and greenhouse gas emissions resulting from food production have been used in vain (Gustavsson, Cederberg, Sonesson, Van Otterdijk, & Meybeck, 2011). Therefore, food waste implicates a negative impact on the environment (Nellemann, 2009). Between 30% and 50% of the world’s annual food production (or approximately 2 billion tons per year) never reaches consumers (Gustavsson et al., 2011); in developing countries, as much as 40% of food is wasted at the post-harvest and processing levels, due to poor infrastructure, low levels of technology, and insufficient investments in food production systems. In industrialized countries, 40% of food also gets wasted because consumers demand and retailers supply only cosmetically perfect food (Smithers, 2013). In China, as a result of growing affluence and escalating urbanization (Liu, 2013), food consumption has increased in the past decade, and the country’s 1.35 billion people are hungry for more. However, increased food consumption also increases food waste, to an extent that the problem demands immediate action (Liu, Lundqvist, Weinberg, & Gustafsson, 2013). In 2008, daily food waste reached 726 tons in Beijing and 589 tons in Shanghai (Liu et al., 2013).
Expanding Chinese urbanization also has shifted food retailing from fragmented, local markets to larger, centralized supermarkets (Reardon, Timmer, & Minten, 2012) creating a $148 billion supermarket industry. With the entry of international market players such as Tesco, Carrefour, and Walmart, China’s supermarket industry is expected to grow at an annual rate of 12.8%. If Chinese consumers adopt the same unsustainable decision path for judging food on the basis of its physical appearance that their Western counterparts have followed, which constitutes a significant driver of food waste (Gustavsson et al., 2011), global food waste will grow even greater.
In response, this research examines the impact of food shape abnormality on consumers’ purchase intentions and the potential moderation by environmental concern and social trust. Although consumers clearly prefer cosmetically perfect food, leading retailers to discard food that does not live up to such standards, improved understanding of this assumption could better inform retailers’ decision making with regard to what food to showcase for consumers. Furthermore, worsening environmental conditions in China have led to increased levels of environmental concern (Hongyan, 2003) and added environmental issues to public agendas. Thus a recent anti-food waste campaign (“Operation Empty Plate”) by the government urged Chinese consumers to finish their meals in restaurants rather than leaving half-finished dishes (Hatton, 2013). In turn, consumers with greater environmental concerns might react to food shape abnormality differently than consumers with lower environmental concerns. Whether consumers engage in pro-environmental behavior like reduction of food waste also depends on their level of trust in those who regulate or produce food (e.g. government and food industries (Lee & Holden, 1999)). Because trust has been identified as a barrier to acting pro-environmentally (Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002) or can leverage the impact of consumers’ engagement in environmental behavior (Blake, 1999, Ozaki, 2011), we anticipate that individual levels of trust in institutions (e.g., government, scientists) might influence consumers’ purchase intentions toward abnormal food.
The closer we move to an understanding of which individual factors provoke Chinese consumers to purchase abnormally shaped food, the better we will be able to design communication campaigns and education programs aimed to inhibit food retailer’s unsustainable custom to only showcase picture perfect food in grocery stores.
Section snippets
Theoretical approach and hypotheses development
According to cue utilization theory (Olson, 1977), consumers rely on extrinsic and intrinsic cues to infer a product’s experience or credence qualities (Grunert, 2005). Intrinsic cues include physical characteristics of the product, such as their color or shape; they cannot be changed without altering the physical product (Akdeniz, Calantone, & Voorhees, 2013). Extrinsic cues instead represent external links, such as brand, price, or product labels. They can be manipulated without modifying the
Participants and procedure
In 2013, 212 Chinese participants were recruited, using an online consumer panel. The average age of the participants was 37.3 years, 44.3% were women (55.7% men), 83.2% were married, 12.8% lived alone, and they were relatively well educated, with 67.4% having a university or college degree. The majority lived in big cities (71.2%). We collected data about participants’ general choices of grocery stores and determined that the majority mainly shopped at well-known stores (25.3%), shopping malls
Manipulation check
Because we used the food shape to manipulate food abnormality, it was necessary to determine that the different shapes had the intended effect of inducing either normal, moderately abnormal, and extremely abnormal food shapes. Therefore, we asked participants to indicate, for each picture presented to them, how normal (abnormal) the depicted food appeared, on a seven-point scale (1 = “very normal,” 7 = “very abnormal”). We analyzed the data with a 3 (food shape abnormality: normal, moderate
Discussion
The results of this study support the assumption that food shape influences Chinese consumers’ purchase intentions. In line with H1, purchase intentions decrease when the food deviates from the norm; consumers are more likely to purchase normally shaped fruits and vegetables than moderately or extremely abnormal food. However, we demonstrate some important boundary conditions for this effect by noting that environmental concern and social trust can drive consumers’ purchase intentions toward
Conclusion
In summarizing the results, it can be said that just like their Western counterparts, Chinese consumers have the highest purchase intentions for normally shaped food compared to any food shape abnormality. Therefore, it is easy to understand that food retailers exclude food that deviates from the norm as our findings support their assumption that consumers request picture perfect food. However, this practice has been identified as main determinant of global food waste. In particular with regard
Acknowledgments
The research reported in this article is part of the Project “LEANGREENFOOD,” funded by the European Commission through contract no. 238084.
References (61)
- et al.
The importance of intrinsic and extrinsic cues to expected and experienced quality: An empirical application for beef
Food Quality and Preference
(2000) - et al.
Consumer perception of meat quality and implications for product development in the meat sector—A review
Meat Science
(2004) The business of international business is culture
International Business Review
(1994)- et al.
Awareness, acceptance of and willingness to buy genetically modified foods in urban China
Appetite
(2006) - et al.
Eating with your eyes: Effect of appearance on expectations of liking
Appetite
(2003) - et al.
Encouraging pro-environmental behaviour: An integrative review and research agenda
Journal of Environmental Psychology
(2009) - et al.
Optimisation of food expectations using product colour and appearance
Food Quality and Preference
(2012) - et al.
How do consumers determine the safety of milk in Beijing, China?
China Economic Review
(2010) - et al.
Effectiveness of marketing cues on consumer perceptions of quality: The moderating roles of brand reputation and third-party information
Psychology & Marketing
(2013) - et al.
The influence of skepticism on green purchase behavior
International Journal of Business and Social Science
(2011)
Perceived consumer effectiveness and faith in others as moderators of environmentally responsible behaviors
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing
Servicescapes: The impact of physical surroundings on customers and employees
Journal of Marketing
Overcoming the ‘value-action gap’ in environmental policy: Tensions between national policy and local experience
Local Environment
Seeking the ideal form: Product design and consumer response
Journal of Marketing
Consumer expectations and their role in food acceptance
Determinants of Chinese consumers’ green purchase behavior
Psychology & Marketing
Antecedents of green purchases: A survey in China
Journal of Consumer Marketing
When do transparent packages increase (or decrease) food consumption?
Journal of Marketing
The role of perceived consumer effectiveness in motivating environmentally conscious behaviors
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing
The effects of food color on perceived flavor
Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice
Food quality and safety: Consumer perception and demand
European Review of Agricultural Economics
To buy or not to buy? A social dilemma perspective on green buying
Journal of Consumer Marketing
Global food losses and food waste
‘Getting rich is glorious’: Environmental values in the People’s Republic of China
Environmental Values
Environmental perspectives and behavior in China: Synopsis and bibliography
Environment and Behavior
Bamboo sprouts after the rain: The history of university student environmental associations in China
China Environment Series
Mind the gap: Why do people act environmentally and what are the barriers to pro-environmental behavior?
Environmental Education Research
Explaining the special case of incongruity in advertising: Combining classic theoretical approaches
Marketing Theory
Understanding the determinants of environmentally conscious behavior
Psychology & Marketing
Cited by (67)
Cultivating initial trust in ghost kitchens: A mixed-methods investigation of antecedents and consequences
2024, International Journal of Hospitality ManagementHot and round: How temperature and shape impact the multisensory appreciation of cornmeal
2024, International Journal of Gastronomy and Food ScienceShape morphing of foods: Mechanism, strategies, and applications
2023, Trends in Food Science and TechnologyHiding in plain sight: How imperfect ingredient transformation impact consumer preference for rescue-based food
2023, Food Quality and PreferenceFactors influencing the visual deliciousness / eye-appeal of food
2022, Food Quality and Preference
- ☆
The authors thank Uli Westphal for providing professional photographs used as stimuli.