Coffee is one of the most consumed beverages worldwide. Over the last decades coffee has become a specialty product. Drinking a coffee beverage entails several mixed factors, such as pleasure, experience, lifestyle, and social status. It can also provide an emotional pick-up, both mentally and physically. Only a few studies have explored the motives and emotions of coffee consumption and not consumption. There is limited understanding of consumers’ emotional approach towards coffee, and what influences a positive and negative inclination towards coffee consumption. This research fills the current research gaps by addressing three main questions: (i) What are the emotions and habits of coffee consumption? (ii) What are the motives of coffee consumption and non-consumption? and (iii) How relevant is the coffee health impact perception of consuming or not consuming coffee? The research activities include 467 face-to-face interviews with consumers. Interviews are performed in two different countries, Italy and Portugal. Data elaboration includes a principal component analysis carried out to identify latent factors on motives and emotions of consumption in both national groups, and to explore the relationship between the main emotions and consumers’ habits and socio-economic characteristics. Results support that consumers have positive emotions from coffee consumption. Perceived emotions are energy, satisfaction, and pleasure. Non-consumption is mainly driven by taste and fear of coffee’s health impacts. There are limited differences in the countries analysed. Socio-economic characteristics limitedly influence perceived emotions and consumption motives. To conclude, consumers are increasingly interested in new coffee products. Understanding the functional and emotional factors of coffee consumption contributes to supporting new coffee product development and commercialisation.

Chocolate is consumed all over the world. Since its origin, it has undergone many transformations to meet changing market demand. A better understanding of consumer behaviour is a key objective of any business, and so it is for chocolate businesses. In order to fulfil this aim, the current study presents a systematic literature review of consumers’ consumption and purchasing behaviour towards cocoa and chocolate. Two databases have been used to collect the literature: Scopus and Web of Science. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) flow diagram was used to identify the articles through the process of data screening and extractions. A total of sixty-four scientific articles have been selected. Research topics, methodological approach and data collection method were identified for each article selected. Then, the identified topics were grouped into four categories in order to obtain a model of major determinants in chocolate consumption: personal preferences, product attributes, socio-demographic factors and economic attributes. Results show that there is a strong focus on Fair Trade in chocolate. Moreover, the current literature review supports the fact that the price and promotion are under-investigated issues. This research represents a valuable tool, especially from a marketing point of view, by creating new channels and new sales opportunities for chocolate products.

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a direct partnership between producer(s) and a group of consumers/members to share the risks and responsibilities of farming activities. CSA aims at producing and providing environmentally, socially, economically, and nutritionally sustainable food. Past research has focused on CSA members’ motivations. This research aims to gain a better understanding of CSA farmers’ perceived benefits and drawbacks in managing a CSA farm, and whether CSA management perception varies in different countries. The research collected data from 35 farmers that were based in the United States (US) and Hungary (HU). Data elaboration includes a one-way Anova test, Chi-square test, principal component analysis, and multiple multivariate linear regressions. The results support that US and HU farmers have similar positive perceptions of CSA farming management, especially in food quality, nutritional value products, environmental, and community benefits. The main differences concentrate on economic, financial, and management perceptions. CSA success as an alternative agro-food production and distribution system relies on the capability to involve CSA members. Therefore, CSA farmers’ management skills may evolve to ensure the performance of communication and community engaging practices. The main CSA concern is ensuring a fair income and living wage for the farmers and labor force. There is a need for better balancing non-monetary and monetary benefits for the farmers.

Food consumers are increasingly searching for emotions and values when purchasing and consuming food. They search for products that ensure social and environmental sustainability, in addition to more common extrinsic product attributes, such as price, packaging, origin, and brand. In particular, there is increasing interest towards product price fairness. The current study aims at exploring consumers’ perception and understanding of price fairness, focusing on the processed tomato products agro-food chain. The study interviewed 832 people. Data were collected through an online questionnaire with the support of Qualtrics software, and data elaboration was carried out with Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). The elaboration includes an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) to identify existing latent factors in the consumers’ perception of enabling agro-food system elements influencing farmers’ reception of fair prices. Then, factor mean values were cross-analysed with socio-economic characteristics and processed tomato consumption habits with Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Results support the idea that consumers are limitedly aware of the processed tomato agro-food chain dynamics and consider farmers as the most unfairly remunerated partner. Women and frequently purchasing consumers of processed tomato products believe farmers should be treated more fairly. There is a difference between what consumers perceive as fair price distribution and actual price distribution among processed tomato chain actors. Further studies may focus on how fairness attribute impacts on consumer purchasing behaviour.

Transitioning agri-food systems towards increased sustainability and resilience requires that attention be paid to sustainable food consumption policies. Policy-making processes often require the engagement and acceptance of key stakeholders. This study analyses stakeholders’ solutions for creating sustainable agri-food systems, through interviews with a broad range of stakeholders including food value chain actors, non-governmental organizations, governmental institutions, research institutions and academic experts. The study draws on 38 in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted in four European countries: France, Iceland, Italy and the UK, as well as three interviews with high-level EU experts. The interviewees’ solutions were analysed according to a five-category typology of policy tools, encompassing direct activity regulations, and market-based, knowledge-based, governance and strategic policy tools. Most of the identified solutions were located in the strategic tools category, reflecting shared recognition of the need to integrate food policy to achieve long-term goals. Emerging solutions—those which were most commonly identified among the different national contexts—were then used to derive empirically-grounded and more universally applicable recommendations for the advancement of sustainable food consumption policies.