This paper highlights the activity of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its impact on brand value in food enterprises with and without foreign participation in Slovakia. Attention has been paid to all three pillars—People, Planet, Profit—and their communication in relation to customers, business partners, employees, local communities, environmental protection, and company values. The paper evaluates the impact of these activities on brand value in food enterprises in Slovakia. One hundred and twenty-five food enterprises were included in the research. The paper offers eight statistically tested hypotheses, of which three have been fully confirmed. Almost 86% of food companies with foreign participation apply CSR activities, while companies without foreign participation comprise only 40% of the total share. The biggest differences in the perception of the importance of CSR activities are noticeable in foundations and charitable activities, and in sponsorship and donations, but are less noticeable in terms of ecology, corporate transparency, and cooperation with non-profit organizations. In the field of environmental protection, CSR activities are communicated and used in order to build brand value, mostly in food enterprises with foreign participation. Almost 96% of food enterprises with foreign participation that apply and communicate CSR activities see an increase in their brand value.

Although the issue of corporate culture has been taken over and addressed in the literature from various perspectives, there are very few researchers about the role of leadership and motivation in it, respectively very few researchers have addressed them as important components of the international company’s corporate culture. The present paper aims to point out that leadership and motivation can be perceived as important aspects of the international company’s corporate culture. The object of the investigation was an international company (situated in Italy) and its five subsidiaries (situated in Italy, Czech Republic, Germany, and Turkey). As the main research method, there was chosen the method of the questionnaire survey, which was attempted by all the company’s employees (totally 270 respondents). The questionnaire was divided into three separate, but logically related parts—leadership, motivation, and corporate culture, and submitted to two groups of respondents—the company’s management and its employees. In total 11 hypotheses were formulated and further evaluated by the methods of Pearson Chi-square Test, Fisher’s Exact Test, Cramer’s V coefficient, Kendall rank correlation coefficient, Eta coefficient, Spearman coefficient, Mann–Whitney U test and Wilcoxon W statistics, Kruskal–Wallis test, and Friedman’s test. The results of the research have proven that leadership and motivation are important parts of the corporate culture.

The paper aims at the question of using Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities as a marketing tool from the customers’ perspective in the Slovak food market. Five research questions and hypotheses were set to reach the given aim. The research was based on a questionnaire survey with 1254 respondents. The frequency and contingency tables were used to evaluate the obtained data, one sample proportion Z test, Pearson Chi-square test, and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. Based on the results, although the customers are familiar with CSR, many respondents need to learn more about these activities. CSR activities must be more actively applied and communicated by the food companies. In most cases, Slovak customers perceive the sustainability of food companies and their CSR activities as a marketing communication tool that can build a positive image of the company. At the threshold of the 3rd millennium, CSR is also connected with rationality and irrationality in creating preferences in consumer shopping behavior. While the way that food is produced can be changed through regulation, the communication of CSR and sustainability activities are major drivers for the development of food companies. Trustworthiness is one of the key factors, and customers play a key role in this direction. The solved issue has a huge impact on the success of the food companies in the market, and, therefore, it would be suitable to pay attention to this issue and conduct similar research in other E.U. countries and on their food companies.

The present paper deals with the issue of food waste in selected European countries, in which we have tried to analyze the socioeconomic rations. The main aim of our research was to analyze food waste quantity and compare the amount of wasted food in European Union countries (except Cyprus due to the unavailability of food waste data). The analysis was based on a dataset provided through the Food Waste Index Report 2021 by the UN environment program and complemented by socioeconomic variables obtained from EUROSTAT. For a deeper analyses of the obtained results, we formulated three assumptions, which have been tested with the use of several statistical methods—Pearson’s correlation coefficient, linear regression, the distance from a fictitious object method, and hierarchical clustering. Our results show that the amount of food wasted in different sectors (retail, food, households) is not correlated, and any of the analyzed socioeconomic variables do not influence the ranking of countries by the crucial variable.

Nowadays, meat and meat products are considered as a part of the daily diet of most people. Therefore, it is necessary to deal with meat and meat products and their consumption according to individual types of meat. Based on the above, the paper is focused on the issue of consumption of individual types of meat in the Slovak Republic and the identification of key factors affecting the consumption of meat and meat products from Slovak consumers' point of view. Secondary and primary data is used to fulfil the aim of the paper. Secondary data is obtained from the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic, on the basis of which the development of consumption of individual types of meat is predicted by 2020. It can be stated that poultry and pork meat and meat products consumption is constantly increasing and there is a slight change in beef and fish meat and meat products consumption, which is currently at a very low level. In the context of the above, a questionnaire survey is realised and based on its results it could be concluded that the price is a main reason for the inadequate consumption of different types of meat. However, consumers consume meat and meat products mainly because of taste, which can be considered as an aspect of irrationality in the diet of Slovak consumers. Furthermore, a number of factors affecting the purchase and consumption of meat and meat products have been identified. The results show rational and irrational aspects in the decision making of Slovak consumers. The most important factor is the quality of meat and meat products, which consumers perceive differently, mainly on the basis of their own personality and other aspects of meat quality (price, origin, freshness, and sensory characteristics of meat). Other important factors are the perception of composition, freshness, price and country of origin.

Although there were many consumer behavior studies, their focus was on traditional brands. Despite that, their conclusions and recommendations can serve as a model for private label research. This paper aims to find out the influence of packaging on consumer purchasing decisions in the yoghurt segment. Attention was drawn to Slovak consumers under the age of 25 years. To achieve the aim, survey, structured questionnaire (549 randomly chosen respondents) and blind test (20 respondents) methods were used. For a deeper analysis, four hypotheses were set out and tested using statistical methods of Pearsons’ Chi-Square Test, Friedman test, Mantel-Haenszel Chi-Square Test, Phi Coefficient, Cramer’s V Coefficient and correspondence analysis. The results proved that almost 58% of respondents bought private labels sporadically, over 20% of respondents bought them multiple times a week, and over 18% of respondents bought them once a week. In terms of perceived quality, it can be said that quality of private label products is perceived as good and adequate, they evoke impression of adequate quality at a reasonable price, the decisive factor for their purchase is a combination of reasonable price and quality, and the reasons not to buy are high price, low quality and lack of information about the producer. Regarding the impact of packaging on respondents’ purchasing decisions, it is found that less than 34% of respondents believe that packaging of private label products is unattractive, and up to 33% of respondents think that packaging does not affect them. AcknowledgementThe paper was supported by the research project GA SUA No. 8/2019 “Private labels as the alternative to purchase”, which is solved at the Department of Marketing and Trade, Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra.