Agricultural Marketing and Consumer Behavior in a Changing World

Abstract

Food has a central position in the life of consumers. It is the source of nutrition and hedonic experiences, it serves a social and cultural function, and accounts for a major share of consumer expenditure. Yet consumer behavior with respect to foods has not attracted much systematic attention by consumer behavior researchers. At least part of the difficulty in conducting research in this important area lies in the complexity and diversity of the influences at work in food choice and consumption, and in the fact that such research requires knowledge of the concepts of and insights from a wide range of science and social science disciplines, including food science, nutrition, medicine, psychology, physiology, psychophysics, sociology, economics, marketing, and anthropology.