Consumer Psychology on Food Choice Editing in Favor of Sustainability

Reviewer 1

Comments and suggestion

Responses

I feel the paper offers a nice contribution to the discipline. However, there are few issues:

First, there are unclear sentences throughout, even in the Abstract. See for instance Our analysis revealed that change interventions have slowly reduced the pace of growth in the food industry, partially because of consumer awareness at a sustainable rate.

The word sustainable in this context is confusing.

Thank you for your invaluable suggestions and constructive feedback.

We have improved the outlook of the manuscript. Those words that were confusing to the reader has been replaced with more appropriate words.

Please see Line 30-32.

Our analysis revealed that change interventions have slowly reduced the pace of growth in the food industry, partially because of consumer awareness at a gradual rate.

Second, the final part of the Abstract is generic and uninformative. Please do provide your most specific implication.

Thank you. In the revised draft, we have provided most specific implications.

Please see Line 34-38.

The implications of the results include inclusive policies for sustainable consumption, government intervention by making it mandatory to consume and produce sustainable items, accountability measures for food producers and rebate system for sustainable production should be introduced, and monitoring of food prices ensuring organic food is affordable to all.

Third, while I like the word cloud qualitative approach, some quantitative evidence might provide roboustness to the empirical analysis.

Thank you for the suggestion. Since, we wanted to have qualitative analysis to use only useful truth rather than factual truth. However, your suggestion is valuable in the context of research. Thus, we use it as the research limitation and urge the future studies to consider it.

Please see Line 447-454

Despite the best effort to produce comprehensive results, there is always a room for improvement. One of the constraints of present study is over emphasis on the qualitative findings, which subsequently led to ignoring quantitative findings. The idea was to attain useful truth rather than factual truth. Hence, the numeric expression of relationship is ignored. It would be good to use follow up quantitative findings in future studies because it would robust the methodology. The useful truth would be backed by factual truth. Therefore, future studies shall incorporate the follow-up quantitative methods to further robust the methodology.  

Fourth, there is evidence that changing labels will affect choices. Given the UK governament has now included the calories in the menus of restaurant, I suggest to include this in your discussion (as sugar is indeed not sustainable): Mauri, C., Grazzini, L., Ulqinaku, A., & Poletti, E. (2021). The effect of front‐of‐package nutrition labels on the choice of low sugar products.

Thank you for the suggestion. We have used the suggested paper in the discussion section.

Please see Line 339-343

The work of Mauri et al. [56] revealed that in the UK, government has now included the calories in the menus of the restaurant. The study also revealed through the experiment that sugar is indeed not sustainable [56]. Hence, there are traces in the recent times that the efforts are made to create consumer awareness about their consumption patterns and unhealthy choices.

Reference List

56.        Mauri, C.; Grazzini, L.; Ulqinaku, A.; Poletti, E. The effect of front-of-package nutrition labels on the choice of low sugar products, Psy. & Market. 2001, 38(8), 1323-1339. DOI: 10.1002/mar.21473

Overall, good work but the paper needs to be tightened up quite a bit.

We appreciate your time and efforts in suggesting improvements for overall quality of the manuscript.

Reviewer 2

Comments and suggestion

Responses

While the topic is indeed of great value to both academia and the practitioner communities, there remain a few issues that ought to be addressed before this paper can be accepted.

I suggest the following revisions to strengthen the paper further:

1.     In the 'Introduction' section, the proposed research gap and the stated objectives do not meet the criteria of proper synergy. Please make the research gap and the research objectives consistent with each other.

Thank you for your invaluable suggestions and constructive feedback.

We have improved the outlook of the manuscript.

Please see Line 68-85

While previous studies have focused on the sustainable consumption while briefly covering the role of government but either the studies heavily emphasized on the numeric expression to explain the relationship or focused on the importance of sustainable consumption patter. However, the consumer psychology in favour or against the sustainable choices is understudied. The hidden embedded themes of the consumer’s psychology about the choices and preferences remain largely understudy. Previous studies have mainly focused on the consumers and producers’ perspective while partially engaging the government’s role in the due process whereas the reasoning for choice selection of the consumers (especially the consumer’s psychology for opting or opposing the organic products) have not been explored in depth. Moreover, the producer’s role is often found to be discussed in a descriptive manner. This study fills the gap by providing critical take on the producers’ practices and active as well as futuristic role of the government in the organic/sustainable items production and consumption. Thus, this study is an attempt to fill the existing gap in the literature by providing qualitative perspective exploring the research phenomenon. The useful truth (qualitative perspective) is largely missing from the existing literature while over emphasis on the factual truth (quantitative perspective). This study also fills the gap in the methodological perspective by offering the in-depth insight about the research phenomenon through qualitative approach.

2.     I think in the “Introduction” section for ease description of content of article, you can add paragraph that you can brief the structure of the article.

Thank you. In the revised draft, we have added the paragraph explaining briefly the structure of the article

Please see Line 106-112.

The structure of the manuscript after introduction includes literature review, which critically evaluates the existing studies, followed by research methodology explaining the methods and materials employed in the existing study to gather the information and commence the primary investigation. The next section after methods and materials is qualitative findings and discussions expressing the current findings in relation to the previous literature at hand. Followed by conclusion and implications. Lastly, the manuscript contains research limitations and future studies.

3.     I think that in the “Literature Review” section, you can add some sentences and add some type of technological innovation tools, which can use effectively in studying consumer behavio such as but not limited to choices toward consumer goods and consumption to improve your section. I suggest some references which can be beneficial for this, as follows:(https://doi.org/10.31117/neuroscirn.v4i3.79; http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2012.12.095; https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2021.1978620).

Thank you for the suggestion. Since we have found the suggested articles very valuable while we did not cover those aspects, we thought it would be best to use in drawing the conclusion

Please see Line 411-417

Neuromarketing (NM) application could be a valuable neuroimaging and physiological tools that should be frequently use by the producers to correlate the consumer's behaviour (such as emotions, decision-making, attention, and memory towards brands and advertisements [57]. Thus, the use of innovation and technology would further help in understanding the consumer's psychology. Moreover, the use of eye-tracking and electroencephalogram (EEG) are other effective marketing innovations [58, 59] that could help in improving the understanding about the consumer psychology.

Reference list

57.        Alsharif, A. H.; Md Salleh, N. Z.; Baharun, R.; Alharthi, R. H. Neuromarketing research in the last five years: A bibliometric analysis, Cog. Bus. & Manage. 2021, 8(1), 1-27.DOI: 10.1080/23311975.2021.1978620

58.        Khushaba, R. N.; Wise, C.; Kodagoda, S.; Louviere, J.; Kahn, B. E.; Townsend, C. Consumer neuroscience: Assessing the brain response to marketing stimuli using electroencephalogram (EEG) and eye tracking, Exp. Sys with App. 2013, 40(9), 3802-3812. DOI: 10.1016/j.eswa.2012.12.095

59.        Alsharif, A. H.; Md Salleh, N. Z.; Baharun, R. Neuromarketing: Marketing research in the new millennium, Neuro. Res. Notes. 2021, 4(30). DOI: 10.31117/neuroscirn.v4i3.79

4.     The authors should explicitly state the novel contribution of this work and its similarities and differences with their previous publications.

Thank you for the suggestion. We have added novel contribution in the introduction section.

Please see Line 91-397

The research is novel as it addresses the elephant in the room of sustainable consumption which as previously been ignored by researchers and academics. There is limited evidence to explore the research phenomenon by bring the hidden embedded themes through qualitative analysis. The previous studies established the relationship through numeric expression while fail to examine the hidden themes of consumer psychology. Thus, this research is unique and novel in providing in-depth understanding about the consumers’ vote in favour or against the sustainable items.

5.     The authors need to clearly articulate the academic and practical implications of this study. Also, state a few of the key implications at the end of the 'Introduction' section.

Thank you for the suggestion. We have explicitly stated the key implications at the end of Introduction section.

Please see Line 98-105

The academic novelty includes contributing new body of knowledge by overcoming numeric expression and exploring the research phenomenon through qualitative perspective. Thus, this paper robust the methodology. Moreover, the existing literature needed updated information behind consumer psychology, producers’ existing practice and role of the government in the due process – all being covered under one umbrella research. Moreover, the practical implication include suggestion of using innovative techniques, promoting sustainable consumption and production practices and procedures.

6.     For readers to quickly catch your contribution, it would be better to highlight major difficulties and challenges and your original achievements to overcome them in a clearer way in the abstract and introduction.

Thank you. We have decided to explain the contribution in the introduction section while for major difficulties we have considered the separate section in the revised draft because other reviewers suggested to have it explicitly there. Hence, to avoid repetition we decided to keep it in the separate section.

Please see Line 446-460.

7.     How could/should futures studies improve the model?

Thank you we have included it in the manuscript.

Please see Line 454-460.

The present model examined the qualitative perspective; however, the model does not include in-depth discussion with the experts. Therefore, the future studies shall consider the model of research with expert’s view in this regard. The current model opens the way to understand the consumer psychology while the future studies should include in their model the role of information technology to attain whether more comprehensive understanding and educating the consumers would lead to sustainable consumption patterns.

If these revisions can be made in the manuscript, I believe that this study can be accepted for publication.

I wish the authors all the very best with this study.

Thank you for your invaluable suggestions and guidance. We have revised the work according to your constructive feedback and suggestions.