**2. Processes behind Food Innovation: The Role of Research, Development and Market Orientation in Food Company Innovation and Consumer Demand**

Food innovation arises from the interaction of producers, retailers and consumers. Each of these actors brings his own set of requirements and goals, explicit or otherwise, generating highly complex multifactor processes that we will now summarize.

For successful companies, innovation is the key to combining long-term profitability, corporate growth and continuity if it can create stable or growing market demand [10,13]. In a broad sense, the "philosophy of Innovation" includes placing new or improved products and new services on the market, and introducing practices that oblige the company to review its production and organizational system [14]. In addition, it entails the co-construction of a shared lexicon and a system of values that resonates with the consumer's outlook. In fact, some products would have a large market in certain cultural settings, and no market at all in settings that are too far removed from the logic that produced them. If well managed, the set of all these variables enables companies to set themselves apart from the rest of their marketplace [15,16], increase competitiveness and reduce production costs [17].

What distinguishes the companies that are most successful in implementing the philosophy of innovation? Undoubtedly, these companies focus on research, development and market orientation [18]. However, the companies that invest large amounts in research and innovation are not necessary the most innovative [19]. According to Capitanio [7], Research and Development (R&D) also hinges on the quality of human capital. The agri-food sector in particular requires a workforce with different skills and various kinds of human capital—called "inter-functional teams"—in order to innovate effectively [10,20]. Thus, companies' R&D work cannot be assessed merely on the basis of their financial involvement [21]. Market orientation is also vital, viz. "the detection and fulfilment of unfilled needs and wants of potential customers using the skills, resources and competences of the company" [22]. The literature on market orientation argues that manufacturing companies' success is closely linked to being able to rely on the receptiveness of a large market and to the company's skill at satisfying its needs [5,23,24]. Though it is true that the growth of the agri-food sector is not always the result of technological implementation and innovation, its expansion makes it possible to test new products with less risk of failure [25]. For small and medium-sized enterprises, important factors involved in growth and innovation include the characteristics of the entrepreneur and cooperation [26], as well as the market power exercised by retailers [27,28] thanks to networks between retailers, transformers and producers [29]. Through exchanges between retailer and consumer, a steady stream of information regarding the buyers' attitude towards the products placed on the market can be acquired, providing feedback whereby products can be adapted on the basis of consumer satisfaction. Consumer acceptance and willingness to try food innovations involve multiple dimensions, including the values connected to the food choice, the attitude towards specific products [30,31], expectations and economic considerations. Consumer expectations of product quality, sensory characteristics and production processes are crucial for product innovation [32]. Conflicting attitudes towards food innovations that have repercussions on the consumer's decision-making process can arise from the perceived relationship between risks and benefits and comparison with available alternatives [33]. On a food scene crowded with increasingly specific products, the consumer's final decision is often influenced by advertising. Media communication on the subject has always been an important tool for swaying public opinion. In this connection, several scholars have recently drawn attention to the so-called "crisis of authority, trust and responsibility" [34], arising worldwide as a result of the climate fomented by the media, which fuels anxiety about diet, health and food in particular, while at the same time generating a virtual space where anticonformist views can be expressed and strengthened [35–37]. The result is a "dietary cacophony", as Fischler, puts it, or in other words, a continual bombardment of conflicting messages that make it difficult to get our bearings and acquire structured information about what we eat [38]. Oftentimes, the celebrity quick-fix [39] takes on greater resonance in the media than the views of the scientific community. Some studies [40] suggest that scientific communication should avoid an over-polite style that may often be seen as unconvincing. Rather, it may be advisable to take more neutral or even aggressive attitudes, depending on whether the audience has no clear position on the matter, or tends to share the opinion the writer seeks to reinforce. This is a critically important finding, as it alludes to the risk of turning scientific information into a tool for manipulating consumers' emotions. Thus, careful attention should be given to determining the most appropriate ways to inform consumers and promote critical thinking on their part.

#### **3. Food Neophobia**

Recent literature [41] has addressed various degrees and types of "aversion to new foods", or food neophobia, which has been defined as the reluctance to eat, or the avoidance of, new or unknown foods. In the following pages, we will reconstruct the origins of the construct and the situations to which it can be applied.

Rozin, the author who first described food neophobia, assumed it has an adaptive and evolutionary function. According to Rozin, human beings are omnivores and, therefore, eat many things. This means that they must use some strategy for avoiding poisonous foods, and preferring foods that will

be beneficial to their health and growth [42,43]. In evolutionary terms, this function is fulfilled by neophobias from the moment a child begins to move independently of its parents. Food neophobia thus provides a means of guiding the child towards foods that are already familiar, and rejecting those that are new and might be dangerous. The aversion to bitterness, for example, due to hedonic neurobiological mechanisms present since birth [44], would help the child avoid eating potentially poisonous plants [45], and can persist until adulthood [46]. "Enemy food" may be rejected before tasting, on the basis of vision alone [47]. This has led to the idea of a very rigid visual coding of the food stimulus. If food is recognized as such because it is similar in shape and color to previous favorable food experiences, it is accepted; otherwise it is rejected. A parent's disapproval of food refusal by the child may be associated with the reaction of disgust with food, and that this may make the child even less willing to try new foods [48]. As many as eight to 15 repeated opportunities to sample an item may be needed to learn to accept a previously rejected food. With young children, one opportunity is enough to double the likelihood of consuming new food [49]. As children age, they tend to be less willing to accept new foods [50,51]. The most critical phase seems to be between two and six years [52]. Since repeated exposure can improve willingness to accept new foods, a number of intervention programs have been developed for schools. The "Food Dudes" program, for example, uses rewards, peer-modeling and repeated exposures to fruit and vegetables, two of the food categories that are most often rejected because of neophobia, to the detriment of health. These interventions seem to be effective in reducing food neophobia when deployed as early as possible and in any case not later than the age of nine years and, above all, if they last for at least six months [53,54]. Under these conditions, they seem able to instill a liking for fruit and vegetables [55–58].

There is also another type of behavior, especially among young children, which can sometimes be confused with food neophobia. This is as "picky/fussy" eating [59,60]: the rejection of a large proportion of familiar (as well as novel) foods, resulting in a habitual diet consisting of a particularly small variety of foods. However, as Taylor et al. wrote [61], "there is no single widely accepted definition of picky eating, although most definitions include an element of restricted intake of familiar foods, sometimes with a further degree of food neophobia". In addition, the behavior of super-tasters might overlap or be confused with that of picky/fussy eaters. The fact that many terms are used to describe the same phenomenon (picky, fussy, faddy or choosy eating) has led to the development of several different measures, making it even more difficult to compare data or establish where picky eating ends and food neophobia begins.

#### *3.1. Neophobia in Adults*

While food neophobia tends to disappear in adolescence, it can still be found in adults who restrict their diets to a few familiar products and refuse to eat anything else. As a result, they may be subject to nutritional deficiencies or social exclusion. Neophobia in adults appears to be influenced by different socio-demographic variables: urbanization is negatively correlated with neophobia, as is income and schooling [62]. Neophobia mostly affects older people and children, and is less common among young people, especially those who live in cities. It also tends to increase with age; the new generations have become accustomed to a greater variety of foods, both traditional and ethnic [63]. A neophobic component in old age can be due to several factors, including dental problems or gastrointestinal difficulties that can lead the elderly to avoid many foods.

The relationship with gender is not as clear. Some studies suggest that men are more neophobic than women, which could be linked to a wide range of cultural determinants, such as the time spent cooking [63], while other studies find no significant differences between the genders [62].
