New Consumers' Behaviour Trends in the food world: A Marketing Perspective

Food has been part of human culture since the origin of the species. The human being has evolved alongside his ability to provide food for himself in ancient times, and today food and restaurant industry follows societal changes. Globalisation has spread food cultures worldwide, technological innovations have changed how we produce and consume our food, and ethical concerns have been raised towards the health of the food we eat and the sustainability of the sector. Marketing research has followed these changes closely (Earle, 1997; Santeramo et al., 2018) since humans daily deal with food consumption choices. One of the most relevant stimuli towards change has undoubtedly been represented by the challenges caused by climate change, which has pushed western society to question their modus operandi in food production and restaurant industries. The need for more environmentally sustainable food production processes has pushed the debate around novel foods, both inside and outside academia. The discussion has flourished in recent years following two significant streams: (i) the impact of food production in terms of environment and animal welfare, and (ii) the novel consumers' needs, specifically in terms of health and ethical concerns (Tuorila and Hartmann, 2020). Environmental sustainability, animal welfare (Ankamah-Yeboah et al., 2019), and pursuing a balance between demand for innovation and naturalness (Coppola et al., 2014) are what the market demands nowadays. Even if new food technologies and novel foods increase food quality, availability, safety, and sustainability (Davis et al., 2020), consumers may not accept them easily. This reaction may be driven by price, attachment to traditions, disgust, unnaturalness, unpleasant sensory expectations (Tuorila & Hartmann, 2020) or a short trust in the production process (Cox and Evans, 2008). On the other hand, technological innovations in the food and restaurant industry are widely accepted and widely used among westerners, like food delivery (Wen et al., 2022) and online reviews (DeNicolò et al., 2023) platforms. These are examples of how innovations represent another significant stimulus for changes in the food and restaurant industry. These have shaped the way consumers get informed on what and where to eat (Kwon et al., 2021) on a global scale, arriving up to the point in which, paradoxically, the excess of information provided by online reviews does not allow consumers to take an informed decision (Ganzaroli et al., 2017, 2020). Globalised trends in food cultures and the widespread use of online platforms are just two examples of how humankind, nowadays, is as interconnected as ever. However, is that so? Are we as equal in our eating habits as these findings suggest? This will be the starting point of the following dissertation, which aims to explore, from a marketing perspective, these new trends in the food world. From the similarities that customers display when deciding to dine out to how online reviews of restaurant relates to customers' perception of service quality, passing through consumers' dysfunctional traits in accepting a novel and more sustainable food, this dissertation will offer a discussion on these themes exploiting meta-analysis and quantitative methodologies.