Contrariwise obesity through organic food consumption in Malaysia: a signaling theory perspective

Background: the context and purpose of the study Unhealthy food consumption has raised an alarming situation of obesity among Asian nations and posing serious threats to human health. Recent studies have acknowledged that organic food consumption has been contrariwise associated with obesity. The consumption of healthy food has received research attention in social marketing and several antecedents and consequences have been identified. However, to date, there is a void in literature that how social, individual, and marketing elements together tradeoff in predicting a healthy lifestyle. Thus, the current investigation unfolds the antecedents of healthy foods’ adoption in Asia by integrating the brand signaling and theory of planned behavior. Methods The data of 241 respondents were collected from selected social media Facebook communities through a survey using assessed 42 questions. For this purpose, participants’ Facebook accounts were selected from the online healthy communities such as ‘Diet Suku Suku Separuh’ (469,000 followers), ‘Hiking, and Camping around Malaysia’ (351,200 followers), and ‘Healthy Malaysia’ (332 followers). The enumerator also engaged with the online community by liking posts and following health accounts. Results The data was analyzed using PLS (SEM) approach, the outcomes of hypotheses revealed interesting information that health consciousness not significantly predicts the purchase intention of healthy food. All antecedents were significant contributors to the prediction of foods’ purchase intentions in this study. However, the findings indicated that no positive relationship exists between brand image identifications and brand credibility identifications, and healthy foods’ purchase intentions identifications. The findings also indicated that no positive relationship exists between health consciousness identifications and healthy foods’ purchase intentions identifications. Conclusions: (summary and potential implications) Owing to the perilous increase in obesity among the general public in Asia. This study reinforced the factor that can help in the adoption of a healthy lifestyle. The study validated that a healthy lifestyle is reliant on the consumers’ health consciousness, environmental concern, and innovativeness through motivating the consumers’ healthy foods’ purchase intentions. Surprisingly, the results highlighted that respondents have not identified brand image and credibility as an antecedent of purchase intention. Given that organic food brands are somewhat new in Asian markets and therefore, brands must endure crisis marketing practices to improve their brand recognition. Therefore, policymakers must facilitate the food promotional activities that are critical to enhancing the perceived benefits of organic food to combat issues like obesity. This paper offers a foundation for future empirical investigations in Asia and various stakeholders on how to promote a healthy lifestyle in Asia. Specifically, the results will help policymakers to offer positive policies and procedures for the improvement of a healthy lifestyle through the understanding of the antecedents and consequences of health-conscious consumers’ healthy foods’ purchase intentions.

Integrating the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Norm Activation Model to Investigate Organic Food Purchase Intention: Evidence from Vietnam

Ample research has been conducted in the organic food market and researchers have investigated factors affecting the purchase behavior of consumers in many countries. However, the studies on organic food that integrate the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and Norm Activation Model (NAM) in a transition country like Vietnam are limited. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate factors affecting the organic food purchase intention in the Vietnamese context. We combined the TPB and the NAM to propose an integrated research framework with attitude and personal norms as two mediators. Through a self-administered questionnaire survey, we collected 611 valid responses from the three biggest cities in Vietnam. Data were put into SPSS 22.0 and SmartPLS 3.0 for analysis. The structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was employed to test both direct and indirect relationships among factors of TPB and NAM in the research model. Our findings indicated that attitude plays the most critical role in explaining the organic food purchase intention of Vietnamese consumers, followed by social norms and personal norms. Notably, attitude also remarkably mediated the impact of environmental awareness and knowledge of organic food on purchase intention. Meanwhile, personal norms played the mediating role in the NAM that intervene the connection between social norms and purchase intention. Based on our analysis, we suggested policymakers, manufacturers, marketers, and sellers of organic food change their actions for the growth of the organic food market in Vietnam.

Pre-COVID-19 Organic Market in the European Union—Focus on the Czech, German, and Slovak Markets

This article compares attitudes to buying organic food in selected countries in Central Europe. The current research was conducted in 2019 on a total sample of 2800 respondents in the Czech Republic, Slovakia (Central Europe, with a relatively new organic food market), and Germany (a traditional Western Europe country with a mature food market). The study results demonstrate significant differences between the three selected markets. The product quality is the most important for German consumers. Slovak consumers consider organic food to be the least recognizable and least promoted of all the regions surveyed, and they are also the least likely to encounter targeted advertising for organic products. Germany is the country where most respondents regularly or occasionally buy organic food. In Slovakia, an interesting finding is the highest proportion of respondents who do not buy organic food at all. Czech respondents often buy organic products in specialized shops and like to grow organic products themselves. The results also suggest that Slovak consumers slightly more often prefer foreign organic products to the local ones, whereas consumers in Germany select regional organic products more often and prefer to buy regional products at farmers’ markets.

Propensity to Purchase Organic Food

Organic food is becoming popular among today's millennial consumers because of increased awareness of healthy lifestyles. Scholars and practitioners attempt to understand what drives consumers to purchase organic foods toward developing market domination strategies and tactics. Since organic food tends to be more expensive than non-organic, this study aims to analyze the impact of consumer values on their tendency to buy organic food. Consumption values are an important factor that could drive consumer behavior and their preferences for goods or services. Consumption values are defined in terms of the required benefits from the purchase and consumption of the preferred products. Sheth, Newman, and Gross defined consumption values in terms of practical, social, emotional, epistemic, and conditional values.

Sunflower diseases control by biological fungicides

The demand for organic food has grown rapidly over the last 25 years in many countries of the world. Organic farming standards require the application of biological products of disease control. The article presents the material on studying the effectiveness of fungicides based on microbiological antagonists against sunflower diseases. We carried out the study in 2020-2021 at V.S. Pustovoit All-Russian Research Institute of Oil Crops (VNIIMK) (Krasnodar). We established that the fungicides Geostim Fit type E, WS based on microbiological antagonists did not reduce the germination of sunflower seeds and actively suppressed seed infection. Their effectiveness against Alternaria spp. reached 50-74 %, against Rhizopus spp. – 74–100 %, against bacteria – 76–80 %. Double treatment of sunflower plants with BFTIM, WS (different strains) reduced the frequency of bacterial blight to 37 %, of dry rot – to 60 %, of Alternaria blight – to 39 %, of Phoma rot – to 41 %, and of Fusarium blight – to 75 %. The application scheme of Geostim Fit E (G), WS; BFTIM (E), WS; BFTIM (Zh), WS showed the best economic effectiveness with a seed yield of 3.56 t/ha, net income of 122 910 rubles, and profitability of 311 %.