Upcycled food, a new kind of food, provides an effective solution to reduce the food waste from the source on the premise of food security for human beings. However, the commercial success of upcycled food and its contribution to environmental sustainability are determined by consumers’ purchase intentions. In order to overcome consumers’ unfamiliarity with upcycled food and fear of new technology, based on the cue utility theory, we adopted scenario simulation through online questionnaires in three experiments to explore how mental simulation can improve consumers’ product evaluation and purchase intentions for upcycled food. Through ANOVA, the t-test, and the Bootstrap methods, the results showed that, compared with the control group, consumers’ product evaluation and purchase intentions for upcycled food in the mental simulation group significantly increased. Among them, consumers’ inspiration played a mediation role. The consumers’ future self-continuity could moderate the effect of mental simulation on consumers’ purchase intentions for upcycled food. The higher the consumers’ future self-continuity, the stronger the effect of mental simulation. Based on the above results, in the marketing promotion of upcycled food, promotional methods, such as slogans and posters, could be used to stimulate consumers, especially the mental simulation thinking mode of consumer groups with high future self-continuity, thus improving consumers’ purchase intentions for upcycled food.

(1) Background: Labeling is one of the significant strategies to guide sustainable consumption behaviors. Nowadays, multi labels being displayed on the front-of-pack of food products is a common phenomenon. However, labels seldom operate solo, and competition or complement effects may be exerted on different labels. Therefore, the research objective is to explore the interaction effect when nutrition and low-carbon labels appear simultaneously; (2) Methods: Across four scenario-based experiments, including ice cream, yogurt, steak, and toast, this study manipulated the separate and joint occurrences of low-carbon and nutrition labels, the interaction effect of joint labels was tested, and the serial mediation model, which includes resource allocation and anticipated enjoyment of food consumption, was verified; (3) Results: Results show that people have a positive preference for the nutrition label and the carbon label, respectively, while these two labels working simultaneously attenuate the positive effect of the single label. When facing nutrition and carbon labels simultaneously, people would infer partial resources are allocated to healthy and environmental aspects so they have a lower anticipated enjoyment from food consumption. Thus, these two labels working simultaneously attenuate the positive effect of the single label, and consumers have a lower evaluation of food products. In addition, the joint backfire on the effect is only exerted on people with a higher level of zero-sum bias and only when joint labels have a high consistency of labels; (4) Conclusions: This study solved the contradictory problem of the joint effect of positive labels. The findings in this research contribute to promote sustainable food consumption. We suggest that similar labels should be avoided in the same front-of-pack of food, and manufacturers need to use ads to bring down consumers’ zero-sum bias.

(1) Background: Although China is one of the largest tea-producing countries in the world, the Chinese tea industry is facing a decline in profits. However, an explosive market, namely milk tea, has garnered the attention of certain famous tea companies, several of which have launched milk tea products through sub-branding or co-branding. However, there is a scarce amount of literature on consumers’ attitudes toward these marketing strategies of the milk tea market. (2) Methods: Utilizing the choice experiment (CE) approach, the aim of this study was to explore consumer preferences for milk tea and investigate consumers’ socio-demographic characteristics regarding the preference for milk tea. (3) Results: Firstly, although consumers show positive attitudes toward tea bases that come from famous tea companies, they barely pay attention to the types of tea bases of milk tea products. As for ingredients, consumers show significantly negative attitudes toward non-dairy creamers when compared with fruit bases. Moreover, new brands could undermine consumers’ evaluations of milk tea. Secondly, education, the weekly frequency of drinking milk tea, and monthly allowance have a significant influence on consumer preferences. (4) Conclusions: Tea bases from famous tea companies can enhance consumer utility and promote consumer preference for milk tea. Thus, famous tea companies could seek cooperation with milk tea manufacturers, which would be a win–win strategy for both sides. On the other hand, tea companies should make use of their established reputations to gain consumers in the milk tea market, and co-branding or sub-branding strategies could be cost-effective methods to achieve this goal in the highly competitive milk tea market.

Repeated food scandals in China have prompted growing consumer consciousness on food safety and health. Organic food, considered to be of higher quality, is being increasingly demanded by Chinese consumers. This study examines preferences for organic labels to provide insight on the sustainable development of the Oolong tea industry. Research was conducted using the choice experiment (CE) method in Fujian and Guangdong Provinces. The results demonstrate that place of origin, organic label, and brand attributes are all significant factors affecting the purchase of Oolong. Also, people demonstrated significantly positive attitudes toward organic labels and preferred Oolong tea from Fujian Province to those from Guangdong Province and Taiwan. Increasing trust can enhance consumer preference and willingness to pay (WTP) for organic labels. Contrary to previous studies, people have a higher WTP for Chinese organic labels than Japanese and American ones. This is probably because respondents are more familiar with domestic Oolong tea and trust more in Chinese organic certification. This provides an opportunity for domestic producers to tailor their organic food labels and better satisfy consumer demands. These findings suggest that the Chinese government should take more responsibility for reducing food-related fraud and thus improve consumer trust regarding organic food.

Background: Since numerical calorie labels have limited effects on less-calorie food ordering, an alternative called physical activity calorie equivalent (PACE) labels, which exhibit calories using visible symbols and the minutes of exercise to burn off the calories, may be more effective in reducing calories ordered. Methods: By using a choice experiment (CE) approach, the aims of this study were to estimate the effects of PACE labels on consumer preferences for healthy and unhealth food. Red date walnuts and potato chips were used as the representatives of healthy and unhealthy foods respectively in this study. Moreover, future time perspective (FTP) is an individual trait variable of consumers, which has been recognized as a significant driver of healthy behaviors. We also included FTP into the interaction with PACE labels. Results: Firstly, the results were opposite between the healthy and unhealthy food groups. Respondents showed significantly more positive attitudes toward red date walnuts (i.e., healthy food) with PACE labels, while they showed significantly more negative preferences for chips (i.e., unhealthy food) with PACE labels. Secondly, people with higher FTP are preferred red date walnuts with PACE labels, while PACE labels on chips could undermine the preferences of respondents with higher FTP. Thirdly, we found that women (vs. men) were less inclined to choose healthy food with standard calorie labels and labels showing the minutes of running to burn off the calories, as well as that the elderly (vs. younger) people in the healthy food group preferred the labels showing the minutes of running to burn off the calories. People with a higher body mass index (BMI) were reluctant to purchase walnuts with the information about the minutes of walking. Conclusions: Results from this study showed that PACE labels have significant effects on consumers’ preferences for food products.

It is of great significance to explore the effect of government subsidies and technical support on rural residents’ green production for improving the level of agricultural green development in the context of the green and high-quality development. Based on the theory of rural residents’ behavior, this paper empirically examined the impact of government subsidies and technical support on rural residents’ green production by using the ordered logit model and household survey data of CLES2022. Additionally, it applied the mediating effects model to explore the transmission mechanism. The results indicate that: (1) Government subsidies and technical support have a significant positive influence on rural residents’ green production. After controlling the characteristics of individuals, families, and cultivated land, the path coefficient is determined to be 0.032, which is significant at the 0.01 level; technical support significantly affects rural residents’ green production, and the path coefficient is 0.390, which is statistically significant at the 0.05 level. The above results are still valid after a robustness test. (2) In terms of the mechanism, government subsidies and technical support promote rural residents’ green production through service outsourcing and productive assets. On this basis, the paper proposed some policy suggestions, such as giving full play to the guiding role of government subsidies, increasing government technical support, establishing a service outsourcing platform, as well as strengthening supervision and evaluation.