Food waste remains a critical global challenge, undermining sustainability and straining food systems. This study investigates adaptable consumption as a transformative strategy for reducing household food waste, emphasising its role in enhancing resilience within food systems. Adaptability of consumption empowers households to adjust food-related behaviours in response to changes in food availability, household needs, and other disruptions. Through cultural probes and semi-structured interviews with 11 Dutch households (43 participants), this study identifies five actionable opportunities for supporting consumers in more adaptability toward food waste reduction: 1) supporting flexible meal moments, 2) reclaiming food edibility, 3) reintegrating food into routines, 4) integrating feedback loops, and 5) playing into life-changing moments. These opportunities represent critical moments in time, behavioural routines, or dynamics where food waste-reducing behaviours can be successfully introduced and fostered. The study identifies practical recommendations within each opportunity, including implementing sensory-driven food labels to guide safe consumption decisions, introducing storage tools to minimise waste, and leveraging digital tools to provide actionable feedback, which can support households in adopting sustainable and waste-reducing practices. By integrating such interventions, stakeholders can enable households to adopt concrete, sustainable practices that align with systemic goals for food waste reduction and resilience.

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To qualify as food design, technological details must be placed in perspective of the all-encompassing challenge of designing a successful, tasty food product that contributes to a desirable society. Articles describing food product development typically focus on technological issues, while they should provide a broader, multidisciplinary perspective to inform food design. Furthermore, food design articles also consider the creative and developmental processes followed to innovate. Including a description of the future consumption context can complete the discourse.@en

Addressing sustainability challenges requires shifts in consumption patterns and lifestyles. Design for Sustainable Behavior (DfSB) aims to cultivate sustainable attitudes and behaviors through product-based interventions. However, there can be a disconnect between design strategy and its embodiment and sometimes conflicts between designers’ intent and users’ interpretation. This paper explores the role of metaphors in DfSB in terms of using metaphorical thinking during the design process and/or creating product metaphors in the final design. It begins by identifying barriers that prevent people from engaging in sustainable practices, such as human nature and ambiguity in design. It then examines the roles of metaphor in design and its key strengths in DfSB. Furthermore, the paper outlines three methods to generate metaphors in DfSB: (1) The source domain implies the target domain. (2) The source domain serves design goals and strategies. (3) Cross-domain mapping is based on embodied experience. In conclusion, the paper discusses potential issues surrounding its use in DfSB.@en

Food packaging is essential for preserving food safety and quality while also addressing environmental concerns. Designers are at the forefront of developing packaging solutions that not only meet functional requirements but also align with evolving consumer preferences and sustainability concerns. To inform designers, this paper discusses fundamental principles of food packaging technology, encompassing aspects such as food preservation, distribution, marketing, usability, and disposal. It provides examples of innovations in active and smart packaging, nanotechnology, material biodegradability, and recyclability, as well as strategies to reduce packaging waste. By providing future food packaging designers with this essential knowledge and these insights, we hope to encourage them to contribute to future innovations that meet the needs of consumers and the environment.@en

In recent years, more designers have been engaging in transitions, for which design expertise is used to develop visions of long-term desirable futures. However, little is known about how design expertise is positioned in transition visioning processes. In this case study, we follow a design agency in envisioning a future food system for a consortium working on the food transition. Based on our findings, we unpack several tensions that emerge between the transition context and design expertise. Such as the tension for designers to explore alternative futures that challenge the current system yet support stakeholders in seeing their place in the future. We conclude by reflecting on avenues for methodological development to optimally position design expertise for visioning in transitions.@en

People waste a lot of food, especially at the consumption stage in consumer households. Despite the urgency of this topic, little is known about how consumers use visual inspection to decide to throw away fruits and vegetables at different stages of ripening and spoilage. We presented 366 US consumers with images of a banana, mango, cucumber, and avocado in 5 stages of decay in an online study and we determined how signs of decay affected participants’ consumption, preparation and disposal behaviors. As expected, product attractiveness, freshness, healthiness, and nutritiousness decreased, while the degree of decay, overripeness, and disgust increased over time. The number of people willing to consume the product was linearly related to the perceived proportion of the product affected by decay, while the number of people wanting to cut off bad parts was highest when about 40% of the product was judged to be affected. As time went on, the banana was cooked and mashed more often, while the cucumber was peeled more often. As growing, ripening and decay differ considerably between agricultural products, it is important to take sensory and preparation differences into account when investigating consumption and disposal behaviors.

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Designers hope that their innovations will be adopted by the people they are designed for. How well their designs align with consumers’ cultural contexts is a key determinant of whether they are accepted or rejected. This is especially
important for food solutions, as eating habits are deeply rooted in local cultures. However, academic disciplines from the humanities and social sciences that study food culture not always provide the knowledge, methods and tools that food
designers need. Whereas these disciplines mainly investigate the past and present, designers look to the future to create new possibilities. In addition, designers often look for concrete, physical touchpoints they can use, whereas the other disciplines may look for sources of underlying meaning and, thereby, may generate conclusions that remain rather generic or abstract. In this article we discuss how culture and cultural context can be understood and utilized by designers. We describe models and tools designers can use to gain sociocultural insights, and we describe different strategies designers can employ to build on such knowledge in their design process. We conclude with suggestions to close the gaps between designers, design researchers and the other disciplines that study food culture@en

Eating meat can have detrimental effects on the environment, animal welfare, and a person’s health. However, consumers are often reluctant to reduce their meat consumption and public information-based awareness campaigns show little effect. As an alternative, some vegan activists and pressure groups employ emotion-based campaigns using meat-shaming techniques in the hope to change people’s meat consumption behavior. By publicly and often drastically criticizing consumers, they try to make them experience negative emotions and ultimately change their behavior. In three experimental studies, we explore whether a confrontational approach of putting meat-shaming messages on products is likely to affect consumer behavior. Specifically, we find that meat-shaming messages trigger shame but also other negative emotions that translate into reduced purchase intentions. The content of the message largely determines the different emotions that are evoked. The messages can activate both restore and protect motivations, either stimulating or hindering behavioral change. Interestingly, it does not seem to matter whether the meat-shaming message stems from a governmental organization, activist group, or private person and whether it is framed with a personal or informational appeal. If the source looks credible, the message influences consumer experience and behavioral intentions@en

To increase practical relevance, scientific research on food design is slowly shifting toward studying real-life food situations, letting go of experimental control to allow creative freedom, and studying design considerations during the creative process. On the other hand, some chefs and food designers have started to develop collaborative activities with academic professionals and involve researchers in their work who can conduct sensory tests of their cooking efforts. Some design researchers try to obtain general principles of interest from the creation and evaluation of food prototypes, for example in digital gastronomy, while using playfulness to increase dining engagement, or while trying to promote healthier and more sustainable food practices. This mutual cross-fertilization can enrich research activities and refine design and culinary practices.

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In recent years, more designers have been engaging in transitions for which design activity is used to develop innovations that steer change. However, little is known about how designers develop innovations to foster change along a desired transition path. In this short paper, we explore how designers can develop joint innovations that steer a transition of the Dutch food system to embrace flexibility and cater to enough. We present a new practice called Adaptable Consumption, which aims to realign food safety, quality, and sustainability. Based on our preliminary findings, we discuss how our process inspires reflections on the transition and reveals key indicators for collaborative change. We conclude by reflecting on areas of the process that need further exploration in order to stage the process and design expertise effectively in this highly complex transition context.@en

For health and environmental reasons, humanity should reduce the consumption of animal-based products, whereas vegetable consumption should be increased. We created stimuli (drawings with texts) that may be able to increase or decrease the purchasing of mushrooms, cheese, and meat. During the design process, we identified four aspect categories (sensory, health, environment, moral) and we generated positive and negative examples for all products. In Study 1 we determined the familiarity, credibility and relevance of each aspect and measured emotional responses to them. In Study 2, we investigated to what extent four aspects combined in an infographic on a poster lessened or strengthened the emotional responses, purchase intention, and tendency to adapt behavior for the three products. Regression analyses showed that the emotional responses to the posters were well predicted by the responses to the product aspects. Purchase intentions were mainly affected by negative affect, while positive and negative affect seemed equally important for people’s intention to change behavior.

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The movement of food may suggest the food is very fresh but may also indicate the source of food is still alive. In this study, we explore the responses that different kinds of food movements can evoke among consumers. In an online study, we presented participants with 14 videos in which a food product changed shape or moved, before or while being eaten. They rated their emotional responses to the food (disgust, fear, fascination), their tendency to empathize with the beings in the video, characteristics of the movements, and how they experienced the food. Most foods that moved in the videos elicited more disgust than expected for those food items. Many product aspects that elicited disgust also evoked empathy, while fascination showed opposite patterns. Products elicited empathy and disgust when they seemed to be alive and potentially harmful, and their movements were twitchy. Participants empathized mainly with larger animals, while disgust was particularly high for smaller animals like maggots in cheese and crawling coconut worms. People became fascinated with foods they found safe, nutritious, and that looked attractive, while the food movements were subtle and looked natural with the food. These results showed that the movements of foods that appeared to be alive were different from what was considered natural for the food, and so they also evoked different emotional responses.@en

Consumers evaluate products with all their senses but exhibit considerable variability in the extent to which they actively use and rely on a specific sense. We know little about the variability in consumers’ propensity to actively engage their sense of smell in the context of product evaluation in purchase decision making. This research provides insights into this issue by conceptualizing the need for smell construct, detailing the development of the ENFAS scale, and providing state-of-the-art psychometric evidence of its validity. Ten studies contributed to a two-dimensional 11-item instrument, supporting the scale's external and cross-national validity, and establishing the position of need for smell in its nomological net. The results yield insight into how smell perception affects consumer choices and may help optimize product presentations for the retail context.

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The market growth of plant-based alternatives to animal food products pushes agencies around the world to discuss specific regulations regarding their communication, terminology, and packaging design. We created and tested 18 packages of plant-based milk and plant-based chicken meat varying the “animalness” of terminology, container, image, and claim. An online survey was answered by a sample of 600 US participants. The image (cow or soybean on milk; chicken or wheat on meat) had a significant effect on the expected origin (animal or vegetable) of the products, but terminology (“milk”, “mylk” or “drink”; “chicken”, “strips” or “seitan”), container (plastic jug or carton box; plastic tray or glass jar), sensory claim (“creamy” or “smooth” on milk) and nutritional claim (“no cholesterol” or “low sodium” on chicken) did not. We found significant effects of the type of container on the willingness to try the meat and of terminology on the willingness to try the milk. Finally, terminology and image significantly affected consumers’ expectations for the sensory characteristics of the two products. These findings can help agencies effectively regulate terminology and packaging aspects of plant-based substitutes, as well as inform industries, scientists, and designers.

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While over the last century food systems have become more controlled, standard-ized and globalized, the plants and animals that form the basis of our food production still show seasonal fluctuation. The growth and reproductive cycles of these organisms follow seasonal weather patterns, including changes in rainfall, light exposure and temperature. Food designers should consider such aspects of season-ality, as they affect the availability and quality of the ingredients that they work with. Moreover, seasonality brings unique possibilities and challenges that can inspire new and interesting solutions for culinary applications, food propositions and social events. In addition, seasonality can be a goal to aspire to, because it can provide benefits in the domains of sustainability, health and well-being. For these reasons, we propose that, instead of following the current trend of desea-sonalization, food designers can contribute to reconcile our food systems with the seasons. This will provide an excellent opportunity for enabling more sustainable, meaningful and healthy rhythms of growing, processing, preparing and consuming food.

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Commercial food packages may contain multiple messages. Packaging designers try to integrate all messages into a coherent design. Designers may use text, images or stylistic features, but these mediums may differ in their suitability to communicate specific product benefits. To evaluate the usefulness and effectiveness of these three mediums, we not only obtained consumer evaluations of packaging designs, but we also monitored the designer's experience during the design process. For three products (orange juice, muesli bar, plain yogurt) we created three consistent packaging designs communicating a single benefit through all three mediums, which was either a [1] health, [2] environmental, or [3] production, sensory or social claim. Subsequently, we developed inconsistent packages communicating three different messages through the three mediums. In an online survey, each of the 18 package variants was evaluated by 59–92 participants. Dummy regression analysis suggested that verbal claims had positive effects in communicating healthiness and environmental friendliness but elicited a negative tendency for sensory properties. The images we used indicated a positive effect for communicating worker conditions, but a negative effect for healthiness. Our stylistic elements suggested a positive effect for sensory appeal, but tended to have negative effects for environmental aspects. As regards designer dilemmas, we noticed that some images (e.g., in the medical domain) required specific graphic styles to make them acceptable for commercial use. Our findings suggest that consumers can handle multiple packaging messages, but finding an optimal configuration remains a design challenge.

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Jan Frijters was born in Eindhoven, the Netherlands in 1947. From 1967 to 1972 he studied psychology in Utrecht, where Ep Köster’s classes in psychophysics and perception motivated him to continue working in the field. The work Jan performed at the Spelderholt, an agricultural poultry institute, became the basis for his PhD thesis “Psychophysical and Psychometrical Models for the Triangular Method,” which he defended in Utrecht in 1980, again with Ep Köster.

Jan was intrigued by the question of how we could measure the sensations that people perceive, these internal representations that are private and cannot be observed from the outside. He built his research on classical psychophysical methods, starting with Thurstonian modeling and Signal Detection Theory. In one of his classic papers with the elusive title “The Paradox of Discriminatory Nondiscriminators Resolved,” he describes how the differences in the number of correct responses between the triangular test and the 3-alternative forced choice (3-AFC) test can be explained by task differences. While the triangular test asks to pick the deviant sample, the 3-AFC procedure asks to pick the least or most intense of 3 samples. In either case, a statistical argument would suggest that P(correct) = 0.33. However, the 3-AFC task is easier because participants already know whether the target sample is more or less intense than the others. The descriptions of the cognitive decision rules underlying simple psychophysical tasks, calculating the expected response distributions, and their use in interpreting the outcomes of sensory tests have found application in sensory testing labs around the world and have formed the basis for standardized ISO testing protocols.@en

This article introduces the concept of mood sensitivity: a service agent's ability to detect mood during service encounters and customize their interaction style accordingly, with the purpose of improving service encounters as a whole. We report on an experience sampling study that explored the role that mood plays in service provision. Eleven service providers from various fields (education, healthcare, government) participated. The study yielded four general components of service encounter mood sensitivity. The first two represent “the eye outward”: (1) being perceptive of the client's mood and (2) being able to manage the client's mood by strategically adjusting one's interaction style. The other two represent “the eye inward”: (3) being perceptive of one's own mood and (4) being able to regulate one's mood to protect personal well-being and avoid negatively impacting an encounter. Our framework of mood sensitivity during service encounters integrates these four components. For each component, opportunities are proposed for the development of tools, training methods, and design interventions that can support service providers seeking to develop their mood sensitivity.

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An increasing number of people tend to eat alone due to social changes and an altered attitude towards cooking and eating practices. Anecdotal reports indicate that solo diners tend to use information and communication technology devices, for example, the smartphone, as part of the eating experience. While lab studies suggest that the devices contribute to an increased high-calorie food intake and decreased feeling of satiety, these studies disregard the everyday experience and motivation of solo diners. We conducted an exploratory study to investigate how solo diners use digital devices as part of their daily eating experience. Semi-structured interviews with solo diners (N =12) were analyzed using thematic analysis in an inductive approach leading to six themes. The themes focus on (1) the perception of a meal; (2) the experience of a solo diner; (3) the purpose of using an information and communication technology device; (4) the perceived influence of the devices; (5) factors decreasing and increasing the use; (6) and the potential to promote healthier food consumption. Our results indicate that the use of digital devices while eating alone can lead to distraction, being unaware of the food texture and the amount that is eaten. The devices can also induce a positive influence by providing entertainment and mitigating negative emotions like loneliness and boredom. The devices have the potential to contribute to healthy eating practices by providing education and by influencing the speed of eating through elements of sound. Although the use of devices might negatively affect eating behavior, their ubiquitous presence also offers the opportunity to reach specific, vulnerable populations. @en