Tools designed to help match people with behaviors they identify as likely to lead to a successful behavioral outcome remain under-researched. This study assessed the effect of a participant-driven behavior-matching intervention on 1) the adoption of a new behavior related to fruit and vegetable (F&V) consumption, 2) study attrition, and 3) changes in F&V consumption. In this two-arm randomized controlled trial, 64 adults who did not meet standard F&V recommendations were allocated to an intervention (n=33) or control group (n=31). Participants in the intervention group ranked 20 F&V-related behaviors according to their perceived likelihood of engagement in the behavior and their perception of the behavior’s efficacy in increasing F&V consumption. Participants in the intervention group were subsequently shown the list of 20 behaviors in order of their provided rankings, with the highest-ranked behaviors at the top, and were asked to choose a behavior they would like to perform daily for 4 weeks. The control group chose from a random-order list of the same 20 behaviors to adopt daily for 4 weeks. During the study period, text messages were sent to all participants 90 minutes before their reported bedtime to collect Yes/No data reflecting successful behavior engagement each day. The binary repeated-measures data collected from the text messages was analyzed using mixed-effects logistic regression, differences in attrition were assessed using log-rank analysis, and change scores in F&V consumption were compared between the two groups using the Man-Whitney U test. P<0.05 indicated significance. The rate of successful behavior adoption did not differ significantly between the two groups (b=0.09, 95%CI= -0.81, 0.98, p=0.85). The log rank test results indicated that there was no significant difference in attrition between the two groups (χ2=2.68, df=1, p=0.10). F&V consumption increased significantly over the 4 weeks in the total sample (Z=-5.86, p<0.001), but no differences in F&V change scores were identified between the control and intervention groups (Z=-0.21, p=0.84). The behavior-matching tool assessed in this study did not significantly improve behavior adoption, study attrition, or F&V intake over 4 weeks.

Demand for specialty coffee worldwide is increasing, yet producers primarily located in developing countries struggle to cover their production costs and sustain their livelihood. Coffee producers are globally seeking higher profits by adapting their conventional production practices to be more socially and environmentally responsible. This dissertation aims to analyze the U.S. import demand for coffee and investigate consumer preferences and willingness to pay for coffee labels representing sustainability efforts. Chapter one introduces the coffee industry and the three chapters of this research. In the second chapter, I analyze the influence of consumers' values and the warm glow effect of giving on their willingness to pay for sustainable coffee using a non-hypothetical auction mechanism. I use an information treatment to test the effect of information on consumers' willingness to pay. Providing information increases the premium consumers are willing to pay for sustainable coffee. Regarding values, consumers that like coffee and experience the warm glow of giving are willing to pay a premium for coffee with a sustainability label. Using a hypothetical online choice experiment, in the third chapter, I investigate coffee consumers' preferences and willingness to pay for Fair Trade, Direct Trade, Rainforest Alliance and USDA Organic coffee. I find that consumers value sustainability labels that aim to solve social issues more than those whose primary goal is to solve environmental problems. I find that when two labels are together on a coffee bag, there is no effect on consumers’ utility. However, there is a positive effect on consumers' willingness to pay for coffee labeled simultaneously for Fair Trade and Organic, and simultaneously for Direct Trade and Organic. In the fourth chapter, I estimate coffee price elasticities between major coffee exporters to the U.S. and calculate pass-through import cost using a system-wide differential demand system. I compare imports of arabica and robusta green coffee and estimate the degree to which they complement each other or substitute one another. I find that arabica and robusta from Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico are substitutes but some exceptions show a complementary relationship. The inclusion of the exchange rate into the demand system has a significant effect on U.S. coffee demand. I find an incomplete pass-through cost of the exchange rate to U.S. import prices. Chapter six concludes by summarizing the results of this dissertation and discussing the future challenges for the coffee industry.

Decision-making is critical in the livestock supply chain. Understanding how producers and consumers make their decisions requires a sufficient understanding of the process of their decision-making behavior. Based on the processing resources, consumers or producers’ choices could be affected by different processes: affective process, cognitive process or both affective and cognitive processes simultaneously. Applying a variety of experiment methods, this dissertation investigates how producers and consumers make their choices by exploring how the product attributes, and the characteristics of the decision-maker, affect consumers and producers’ choice-making behaviors. In the first essay, I implemented a discrete choice experiment and estimated random parameter logit models with error component to analyze Chinese consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for domestic and imported beef flank labeled with the new quality grades and other relevant beef labels. Results suggest foreign beef producers could compete most closely with domestic beef if it was labeled as premium quality. In the second essay, I investigate Chinese consumer WTP for beef from different countries and the role of ethnocentrism, country image, and product image on the WTP. Results suggest that foreign beef exporters could promote their beef in China by advertising in accordance with positive country and product images. In the third essay, I attempt to determine hog farmers’ motivations to adopt genomics for breeding hogs that are more resistant to the disease. In doing so I focus on the impact of their risk preferences and related peer effects that might influence potential adoption. This case study provides implications for local governments and companies trying to promote new technologies. In the fourth essay, I investigate how social influence affects producers’ behavior under disease outbreak using social network analysis. In particular, I focus on how information flows during an epidemic such as African Swine Fever. Findings provide insights into how information flows and how actors communicate during a situation of crisis. This can be used by stakeholders (1) to disseminate information; and (2) to avoid the spread of rumors and false information.

Food safety incidents have constantly hit society and threatened human health. Hundreds of millions of people become sick after eating contaminated food every year. As the problem continues to emerge, consumers must take action to avoid purchasing risky food products. As one of the solutions, food traceability systems have been developed rapidly in many countries in recent years. More food products can now be provided with traceability information to assist consumers in making purchase decisions. To design services for grocery shoppers to access food information from food traceability systems possibly through modern technologies, this transdisciplinary user research study investigated shopper insights into food traceability information on produce provided at grocery stores, with a fusion of ideas from the disciplines of design and consumer behaviors. Through literature reviews, an online survey study, and an online interview study, this research revealed a series of shopper insights concerning (1) shoppers’ knowledge about food traceability information, (2) shoppers’ behaviors and motivations for using traceability information on produce, (3) shoppers’ perceptions towards providing traceability information on produce to them at grocery stores, (4) shoppers’ perceived important traceability information on produce, (5) shoppers’ behavior intentions of using specific ways to access traceability information on produce, and (6) shoppers’ thresholds to pay for traceability information on produce. Based on the results, this study identified design opportunities for the features, components, and mediums of the service design of future food traceability systems.

Urban community gardens hold the potential to serve as a form of multifunctional green infrastructure to advance urban sustainability goals through the array of ecosystem services they afford. While a substantial body of literature has been produced that is dedicated to the study of these services (e.g., providing fresh produce, promoting socialization, and enhancing urban biodiversity), less attention has been paid to the strategic planning of urban community gardens, particularly in an expansive urban setting, and in the context of the co-benefit of mitigating extreme heat. The research presented in this dissertation explores the potential of community gardens as a form of multifunctional green infrastructure and how these spaces can be planned in a manner that strives to be both systematic and transparent. It focuses on methods that can (1) be employed to identify vacant or open land plots for large metropolitan areas and (2) explores multicriteria decision analysis and (3) optimization approaches that assist in the selection of “green” spaces that serve as both provisioning (a source of fresh fruits and vegetables) and regulating (heat mitigation) services, among others. This exploration involves three individual studies on each of these themes, using the Phoenix metropolitan area as its analytical backdrop. The major lessons from this piece are: (1) remotely sensed data can be effectively paired with cadastral data to identify thousands of vacant parcels for potential greening at a metropolitan scale; (2) a stakeholder-weighted multicriteria decision analysis for community garden planning can serve as an effective decision support tool, but participants' conceptualization of garden spaces resulted in social criteria being prioritized over physical-environmental factors, potentially influencing the provisioning of co-benefits; and (3) optimized urban community garden networks hold the potential to synergistically distribute co-benefits across a large metropolitan area in a manner that systematically prioritizes high-need neighborhoods. The methods examined are useful for all metropolises with a preponderance of open or vacant land seeking to advance urban sustainability goals through green infrastructure.

As the landscape of the mass channel of retailing has become increasingly competitive, the leading mass retailer in the world, Retailer A*, has identified the Hispanic market as their last organic growth opportunity within the United States. In this pursuit, Retailer A has named Manufacturer A., the largest food and beverage manufacturer in the world, as their sole category advisor for the Hispanic market across their entire store. Developing aligned strategies that leverage the size and power of these partners creates the potential opportunity for both organizations to benefit from increased profits and increased market shares. Manufacturer A has performed extensive research on the Hispanic market in order to gain a deep understanding of who Hispanic consumers are and the unique shopping behaviors they exhibit that make this market the most profitable ethnic group in the US.** Along with this research, an analysis of the top eight Manufacturer A brands’ performances at Walmart reveals that although both organizations already have footholds within the Hispanic market, there still remains large opportunities for growth. Through prioritizing business and marketing strategies aimed at appealing more to Hispanic consumers at Retailer A, Manufacturer A stands to potentially gain over $39M in incremental sales from this partnership.

* All company, brand, and product names have been redacted to protect confidentiality.
**All market demographics and statistical market information mentioned hereafter were originally researched and verified by Retailer A. Information mentioned throughout this paper was sourced from internal company documents.

Consumers can purchase local food through intermediated marketing channels, such as grocery stores, or through direct-to-consumer marketing channels, for instance, farmers markets. While the number of farms that utilize direct-to-consumer outlets keeps increasing, the direct-to-consumer sales remain lower than intermediated sales. If consumers prefer to purchase local food through intermediated channels, then policies designed to support direct channels may be misguided. Using a variety of experiments, this dissertation investigates consumer preferences for local food and their demand differentiated by marketing channel. In the first essay, I examine the existing literature on consumer preferences for local food by applying meta-regression analysis to a set of eligible research papers. My analysis provides evidence of statistically significant willingness to pay for local food products. Moreover, I find that a methodological approach and study-specific characteristics have a significant influence on the reported estimates for local attribute. By separating the demand for local from the demand for a particular channel, the second essay attempts to disentangle consumers’ preferences for marketing channels and the local-attribute in their food purchases. Using an online choice experiment, I find that consumers are willing to pay a premium for local food. However, they are not willing to pay premiums for local food that is sold at farmers markets relative to supermarkets. Therefore, in the third essay I seek to explain the rise in intermediated local by investigating local food shopping behavior. I develop a model of channel-selection in a nested context and apply it to the primary data gathered through an online food diary. I find that, while some consumers enjoy shopping at farmers markets to meet their objectives, such as socialization with farmers, the majority of consumers buy local food from supermarkets because they offer convenient settings where a variety of products can be bought as one basket. My overall results suggest that, if the goal is to increase the sales of local food, regardless of the channel, then existing supply-chain relationships in the local food channel appear to be performing well.

This dissertation offers three essays that investigate consumers’ health-related food choices and behaviors from three different, yet complementary, angles. The first essay uses an eye-tracking experiment to examine consumers’ visual attention to the Nutrition Facts Panels for healthy and unhealthy products. In this essay, I focus on how involvement and familiarity affect consumers’ attention toward the Nutrition Facts panel and how these two psychological factors interact with new label format changes in attracting consumers’ attention. In the second essay, I demonstrate using individual-level scanner data that nutritional attributes interact with marketing mix elements to affect consumers’ nutrition intake profiles and their intra-category substitution patterns. My findings suggest that marketing-mix sensitivities are correlated with consumers’ preferences for nutrient attributes in ways that depend on the “healthiness” of the nutrient. For instance, featuring promotes is positively correlated with “healthy” nutritional characteristics such as high-protein, low-fat, or low-carbohydrates, whereas promotion and display are positively correlated with preferences for “unhealthy” characteristics such as high-fat, or high-carbohydrates. I use model simulations to show that some marketing-mix elements are able to induce consumers to purchase items with higher maximum-content levels than others. The fourth chapter shows that dieters are not all the same. I develop and validate a new scale that measures lay theories about abstinence vs. moderation. My findings from a series of experiments indicate that dieters’ recovery from recalled vs. actual indulgences depend on whether they favor abstinence or moderation. However, compensatory coping strategies provide paths for people with both lay theories to recover after an indulgence, in their own ways. The three essays provide insights into individual differences that determine approaches of purchase behaviors, and consumption patterns, and life style that people choose, and these insights have potential policy implications to aid in designing the food-related interventions and policies to improve the healthiness of consumers’ consumption profiles and more general food well-being.

Food deserts and food insecurity can negatively impact the health of communities. Urban farming, specifically with aeroponics systems, could be a possible solution in alleviating food insecurity in food deserts. In order to test and understand what type of system and products work best in such areas, this thesis looks at urban farming from farms' and consumers' perspective using qualitative and quantitative data. The qualitative data was collected from current businesses that are using urban farming techniques within the Phoenix valley. Based on the quantitative research, the consumers studied seemed willing to eat leafy greens and vegetables given that they are affordable, fresh, and they understand how to cook them. Further research could be a more focused study on residents of specific neighborhoods that are classified as food deserts. Another aspect that could be researched further is the other factors affecting the health of residents located in food deserts other than the availability of food. This could include, but is not limited to, lack of nutritional education, insufficient cooking materials, and personal food preferences.