The last few decades testify that consumers’ concerns for healthier lifestyles and environment care are driving forces for reshaping food buying intentions and their perspectives on food quality. The present study identifies the importance that consumers attach to quality, health, and environment selected cues of purchased food products. More precisely, to elicit preferences for social, environmental, and qualitative food cues, a survey instrument was developed and applied on 797 Belgian and Romanian consumers. Our findings suggest that investigated consumers most frequently use freshness, taste, and appearance to evaluate food quality. The use frequency of food quality cues related to health is primarily influenced by the attention paid to food quality. The most relevant cues of food healthiness are ingredients, nutrition facts, and additives and for food environmental impact are packaging, food origin, and production type. It is concluded that food quality receives high attention both from Belgian and Romanian consumers and health and environment related cues can be used as a means of improving consumer health and environmental protection.

This study is based on a probabilistic survey and adopts an original approach—by putting dual focus on certified and uncertified organic products—to draw a profile of Romanian consumers of organic food. Uncertified organic food (from farmers’ market or self-production) is considered to be more “organic” than certified organic food. While consumers are strongly oriented toward organic food (certified or uncertified) and driven by health concerns and taste, they are primarily deterred by price and lack of availability. Results show that, to develop a sustainable market, consumers’ extended and positive evaluations of uncertified organics represent the link to initiate the behavioral transition from conventional to certified organic food.

Home composting is judged as an effective municipal waste management option in which household contribution is essential, but it has a low adoption. The objectives of the study were to determine the factors that influence home composting intention and identify the moderating role of composting knowledge in the model, using the combined model of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and norm activation model (NAM). A structured questionnaire was applied to a sample of 367 residents of Isfahan city, Iran, randomly selected. Data were analyzed using cluster analysis, discriminant analysis, PLS-SEM, and PLS-MGA. Cluster analysis grouped the three clusters based on the constructs of the integrated model, and this result was confirmed by discriminant analysis. Findings show that attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavior control can predict the intention to compost. Study results confirmed the positive effect of awareness of the consequences of composting on ascribed responsibility to compost at home, of responsibility to the personal norm, and of the personal norm on intention to compost at home. Furthermore, it was observed that composting knowledge moderates the relationship between subjective norm and behavioral intention, and the one between perceived behavioral control and behavioral intention. The integrated model had more predictive power than the TPB model. The fit statistic of the integrated model was good and 71% of the variance for intention behavior toward home composting. The insights on factors affecting residents’ intention to compost obtained from this study can be used in measures and programs that reinforce and stimulate home composting.

The main purpose of this paper is to explore consumers’ perceptions of organic food and examine whether organic food products are perceived in the North-West Region of Romania as offering health and environmental benefits or as simply another sine qua non condition to be integrated into the luxurious yuppie lifestyle. The inspiration for our study came from witnessing the stereotypical image of organic food consumers as “stylish, trendy, fancy consumers” in the last three to five years. Scientific evidence on the perceptions of organic food is based on a probabilistic survey. The results indicate an environmental consciousness of organic food consumers in North-Western Region of Romania in terms of organic food: a high percentage of consumers believe that organic food is healthier than conventional food (87%) and that it contributes to environmental protection more than conventional food (75%). A statistically significant difference (p < 0.05) was observed between people with higher education and those without higher education concerning the following beliefs: belief that most people consume organic products because they are in fashion, and belief that organic food contributes to environmental protection.