Improving the understanding of key nutritional elements to support healthier and more informed food choices: The effect of front-of-pack label bundles

OBJECTIVES

In the current open debate at the European level on what would be the best Front-of-Pack Label (FOPL) to support customers' healthier and more informed food choices, little effort has been dedicated to analyzing the potential effects of bundling existing FOPLs. This study aims to compare the effects of consumers' subjective understanding and liking of different types of FOPL bundles.

METHODS

We performed an experimental design by manipulating the FOPLs' scheme, where different types of FOPL bundles were designed according to the "directiveness" of the FOPLs' scheme. A "mixed" bundle was composed of a non-directive label (i.e., NutrInform Battery) and a directive label (i.e., Keyhole), and a "double-directive" bundle was composed of two directive labels (i.e., Nutri-Score and Keyhole). This study was conducted among a sample of 327 Swedish individuals responsible for purchases recruited through international web panel providers.

RESULTS

The results showed that a mixed bundle has been more effective than the double-directive bundle and the single-directive label (i.e., the existing FOPL in the investigated market) in allowing consumers to improve their subjective understanding (in terms of comprehensibility, help-to-shop, and complexity reduction) and liking towards the labels.

CONCLUSIONS

This study extends the current research on bundling in general and on FOPL bundles in particular by providing evidence regarding consumers' subjective understanding and liking of the labels. Additionally, the research provided findings that might be relevant for policymakers by suggesting to investigate bundle of FOPLs to help the consumers' understanding in their process toward healthier and more informed food choices.

Decision-Making and the Contract of the Complementary Product Supply Chain Considering Consumers’ Environmental Awareness and Government Green Subsidies

The environmental awareness of consumers and enterprises has gradually increased, and green production and green consumption have become the main theme of social economy. On the other hand, the complementary product market has become an important source of competitive advantage for enterprises. Considering a complementary product supply chain, and taking account of the consumers’ environmental awareness and the green subsidies provided by the government, this paper examines members’ decisions in relation to four contract models based on game theory. By solving the model, it is shown that the government’s green subsidy plan improves the green degree of subsidized products and complementary products. Furthermore, compared to wholesale price contracts, revenue-sharing and cost-sharing contracts motivate manufacturers to improve the greenness of subsidized products, and they achieve a Pareto improvement for the whole supply chain and its members, when the contract parameters are appropriate. Numerical experiments also reveal that both the greenness of the complementary products and the profit for members increase with the green innovation spillover effect as a result of the complementary products and the scale of green consumers with environmental awareness in the market. This study provides good guidance for decision-making concerning the complementary product supply chain, and further contributes to environmental protection.

Pricing and composition of multiple vertically differentiated bundles considering demand uncertainty1

The aim of this paper is to investigate a profit-maximization firm how to determine the composition and prices of multiple bundles. Bundles are sets of components that must meet some technical constraints; furthermore, customers differ in their quality valuations and choose the bundle that maximizes their utility. A mixed integer non-linear program is proposed to solve this problem. First, a two-step approach is employed to obtain the firm’s optimal decision. The result indicates that when the firm faces deterministic demand, the optimal set of bundles it offers is independent of the distribution of customer valuations and does not contain any dominated bundle. In addition, dominated components cannot be used to construct the optimal bundles. Second, the impact of demand uncertainty on the firm’s performance is explored. The results suggest that disregarding the demand risk may result in broader assortment and suboptimal prices. Finally, numerical experiments and sensitive analysis are conducted to provide managerial insights for the pricing and composition of multiple bundles.

Software piracy and bundling in the cloud-based software era

Purpose

In the cloud computing era, three merging developments in software industry are: cloud and on-premises software may offer complementary value to each other; cloud software service requires the support of significant information technology infrastructure; and software piracy problems can be better managed in the cloud. However, how these developments together impact a vendor’s bundling strategy has not yet been investigated. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing on the product bundling framework, this research establishes stylized models to study a software vendor’s bundling decision in the cloud-based era with special consideration on the issue of software piracy.

Findings

The authors find different key parameters associated with the cloud era exert different effects on the bundling decision. When on-premises software and cloud software generate additional value by complementing each other, software vendors can make greater profits under the pure components (PC) strategy. Regarding a low infrastructure cost, software vendors should favor pure bundling (PB). The impact of piracy deterrence effectiveness is less straightforward – it favors PC when piracy deterrence effectiveness is low, but PB when piracy deterrence effectiveness is high.

Originality/value

This study makes key contributions to theory and practice. First, this is the first study to examine software bundling strategies in the cloud computing era, whereby the three factors relevant to the cloud phenomenon have been considered. Second, this paper contributes to the literature of bundling and software piracy by examining the intersection of these two streams of literature. Third, this paper sheds light on a vendor’s bundling decision when facing piracy problems in the emerging cloud software era.

Contingent choice. Exploring the relationship between sweetened beverages and vegetable consumption

Adults and children are repeatedly exposed to the pairing of food and drink as found in meal deals and "combos". There may arise from this indoctrination, a contingent relationship between drink context and food preference. Our multi-method research examines food and drink combining. A survey-based study examines the food and drink pairing preferences of adults (N=60), while a laboratory study with young children (N=75, aged three to five) examines the role of drink context on vegetable consumption. The adult survey finds strong food and drink combining preferences. The pairing of soft drinks with calorie dense foods is regarded favorably, while the pairing of soft drinks with vegetables is not. In child food trials, vegetable consumption is not influenced by the child's fussiness but is influenced by the drink accompaniment. In limited contexts, these findings demonstrate the contingent relationship between drink context and food consumption. Both palate preference and associative learning may be mechanisms driving the effects of drink context on food consumption. The findings suggest simple consumer strategies that might be employed to change dietary patterns (e.g., drink water with meals), and hold straightforward policy implications (e.g., increase water as the default option in meal deals).