Title:	Food Consumer Science
Authors:	Dominique Barjolle Matthew Gorton Jasna Milošević Ðorđević Žaklina Stojanović
Keywords:	Theories, Methods
Issue Date:	2013
Publisher:	Springer
Description:	Food consumer science is at the crossroad of a multitude of scientific disciplines and interests. Research methods mainly originate from social sciences such as economics, marketing, psychology and sociology, while the most common applications bend towards the natural sciences related to agriculture, food and nutrition. The exploration of this crossroad presents a challenging and rewarding domain with numerous opportunities to contribute to a better understanding of (the determinants of) food choice and consumer decision-making and in extension also to more effective public policy, industry competitiveness, societal welfare and human well-being. Not only has the European Union (EU) undergone fundamental changes during the last 15 years, also food consumer science has been a field of continuous evolution. After a major focus on food safety, risk perception and risk communication since the mid-1990s, the attention has gradually expanded to cover also nutrition, diet and health and further to sustainability and food authenticity most recently. The number of peer-reviewed scientific papers on food consumer issues in Web of Science has more than tripled during the last decade, together with a substantial increase in the number of journals, research groups and scientists active in the field. This book with its focus on food consumer science in the Western Balkan countries is a welcome addition to current knowledge base. Besides providing an overview of theoretical and economic foundations for food consumer science, it also illustrates qualitative and quantitative food consumer research applied to sectors and product groups with a high degree of relevance to the Western Balkan countries, a region that stayed previously undeserved out of the picture. Yet, justifications for a stronger focus on food consumer science in this region are numerous. Food and beverages occupy a high share of household expenditure, up to 30–40% in some cases as documented in this book, which underscores the importance of the economic and social dimensions of food choice. The strong gastronomic cultural heritage of the region provides many excellent quality traditional foods, though unknown to most EU consumers and therefore leaving a lot of potential unexploited. Food choice motives and barriers display similarities as well as important dissimilarities as compared to other regions of the EU (Milosevic et al. 2012); measurement scales and constructs may have to be operationalised differently, and other moderators and mediators may emerge in different degrees when explaining food choice. Last but not least, local economic, social, political, technological and structural forces in the food marketing environment shape a specific frame for food production, product differentiation, marketing strategies and public food policy.
URI:	http://10.6.20.12:80/handle/123456789/51366
ISBN:	978-94-007-5946-6
Appears in Collections:	Population Studies

Items in DSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.