European Expert Buyers’ Perceptions of New Zealand Agri-food Products and Businesses: An Explanation of the Theory of Buyer-Seller Relationships and Country of Origin Theory

With agrifood export earnings so pivotal to New Zealand (NZ)’s economy, understanding how expert buyers perceive the country’s agrifood products and businesses is imperative. This holds particularly true for the European Union (EU), being one of NZ’s main trading partners. This research draws on the key theories centering on buyer-seller relationships and Country of Origin (CoO) theory, investigating specifically the perceptions of NZ agrifood products and businesses held by European expert buyers who have different levels of knowledge and experience.  A quantitative survey was conducted which investigated these perceptions held by the European expert buyers accessed in-person at a trade show in 2015 in Germany. Bipolar adjective scales were used to test product and business attributes. One-way ANOVA’s were adopted to test for perceptual differences between European buyers with high/medium/low experience with New Zealand’s agrifood products and/or businesses. Overall, New Zealand agrifood products and businesses were viewed positively from the perspective of European expert buyers, with the degree of positivity increasing as the level of experience increased. This study also highlighted the need for future research on how CoO affects buyer-seller relationships, especially via the concept of the “halo effect”

Understanding apple attribute preferences of US consumers

Apple preferences of US consumers are widely explored. However, the key factors that drive the importance that US consumers place on apple attributes are rather unexplored. To fill this literature gap, an online survey with 383 US apple buyers was conducted. A two-step analysis consisting of descriptive statistics and partial least squares structural equation modelling indicates that subjective knowledge was the most important factor, determining both the discernment of buyers and attitudes towards US fruit growers. Objective knowledge and sociodemographic factors, other than education, were not found to have any impact. The discernment of a buyer and their ability to distinguish apple varieties had the greatest impact on the importance that US consumers placed on physical and commercial product attributes. It was also found that attitudes towards growers impacted on the importance which consumers place on both types of attributes. Given that consumer attitudes were shown to be a strong driver of their buying preferences, growers and grower associations should also consider highlighting the positive health and societal benefits that their products provide

Understanding apple attribute preferences of US consumers

An encyclopedia entry to enhance the understanding on fresh apples - building on the work of Meike Rombach, David Dean and Tim Bair

Exploring key factors determining US consumer preferences for growing over buying fruit in pre-Covidian and Covidian times

This study provides insights for managers in the food retail sector, the horticultural industry, actors involved in community gardening and farmers’ markets. It proposes a model that investigates key factors determining US consumer preferences for growing fruit over buying it in pre-Covidian and Covidian times. For this purpose, an online survey with a sample of 383 US residents was conducted. Partial least squares structural equation modelling shows that subjective knowledge about fruit and the perceived impact of COVID-19 are the most important drivers of preferences for growing over buying in Covidian times. The impact of COVID-19 had no relevance for the pre-Covidian times. For both scenarios, only age and gender as socio-demographic factors were found to influence subjective knowledge and the perceived impact of COVID-19. Other sociodemographic factors were not found to have any impact

Should I pay or should I grow? Factors which influenced the preferences of US consumers for fruit, vegetables, wine and beer during the COVID-19 pandemic

This study examines the key factors that determine the preferences of US consumers towards the growing and processing used for horticultural products such as fruit, vegetables, wine and beer over their preferences for buying them both before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings obtained using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) show that engagement with horticulture prior to and after the occurrence of COVID-19 influenced preferences for the growing and processing of fruit, vegetables, wine and beer over buying them in both the pre-COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 contexts. Engagement with horticulture before and after the COVID-19 pandemic was significantly impacted by attitudes towards US growers. Attitudes towards COVID-19 and human values such as self-enhancement, conservation and self-transcendence were also found to be significant factors, while openness to change was not found to be significant. Best practice recommendations are included on the basis of these findings for managers of community gardens, horticultural properties and specialized food stores

Contemporary Water Governance: Navigating Crisis Response and Institutional Constraints through Pragmatism

Water has often been the source of crises and their frequency will intensify due to climate change impacts. The Niagara River Watershed provides an ideal case to study water crises as it is an international transboundary system (Canada-United States) and has both historical and current challenges associated with water quantity and quality, which resonates broadly in water basins throughout the world. The aim of this study was to understand how stakeholders perceive ecosystems and the relationship with preferences for governance approaches in the context of water governance. An online survey instrument was employed to assess perceptions of the system in terms of resilience (engineering, ecological, social-ecological, or epistemic), preferences for governance approaches (state, citizen, market, and hybrid forms), and the most pressing issues in the watershed. Responses showed that, despite demographic differences and adherence to different resilience perspectives, support was strongest for governance approaches that focused on state or state-citizen hybrid forms. The validity of the resilience typology as a grouping variable is discussed. The roles of institutional constraints, pragmatism in governance approach preferences, and the influence of multiple crises are explored in relation to the context of the study site, as well as to water governance scholarship more broadly.Funding for this work, as part of the Climate Change Adaptation and Water Governance (CADWAGO) project, from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, the Volkswagen Stiftung and Compagnia di San Paolo through the Europe and Global Challenges programme.https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/8/6/22

COVID-19 and the Locavores: Investigating the drivers of US consumer preferences for apples

This study provides insights and best-practice recommendations for marketing managers in the US food retail sector and the horticultural industry. An online survey distributed via a crowd sourcing platform in 2021 aimed to explore the factors that explained the intentions of US consumers to purchase locally grown apples. The Theory of Planned Behavior was used as a conceptual framework to shape the proposed model. The results emphasize the importance of behavioral, normative and control beliefs as important factors towards attitudes. Subjective norms and perceived behavioral control were also found to be key drivers in understanding behavioral intention. All concepts, with the exception of perceived behavioral control, were found to be significant behavioral predictors

Fruit vending machines as a means of contactless purchase: Exploring factors determining US consumers’ willingness to try, buy and pay a price premium for fruit from a vending machine during the coronavirus pandemic

During the coronavirus pandemic, buying and consumption patterns of US consumers shifted towards contactless buying. While the topic of online buying is well explored within the existing literature on this topic, purchasing fruit from a vending machine is still yet to be investigated. This exploratory study used quantitative data to examine the factors driving US consumers’ willingness to try, buy and pay a premium for fruit from vending machines. An online survey of 391 US consumers was conducted to fill this research gap between 7 July and 10 July 2022. This survey was distributed via Amazon Mechanical Turk, a crowdsourcing platform which is widely used for consumer research. Smart PLS 4 facilitated the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) analysis, as this method well suited for testing exploratory models with complex relations between the latent variables. Results indicated that COVID-19 pandemic-related benefits, quality benefits, value-related benefits and experiential benefits were the most important predictors that determined willingness to try, buy and pay a price premium when purchasing fruit from a vending machine

Orion Entry Display Feeder and Interactions with the Entry Monitor System

The Orion spacecraft is designed to return astronauts to a landing within 10 km of the intended landing target from low Earth orbit, lunar direct-entry, and lunar skip-entry trajectories. Al pile the landing is nominally controlled autonomously, the crew can fly precision entries manually in the event of an anomaly. The onboard entry displays will be used by the crew to monitor and manually fly the entry, descent, and landing, while the Entry Monitor System (EMS) will be used to monitor the health and status of the onboard guidance and the trajectory. The entry displays are driven by the entry display feeder, part of the Entry Monitor System (EMS). The entry re-targeting module, also part of the EMS, provides all the data required to generate the capability footprint of the vehicle at any point in the trajectory, which is shown on the Primary Flight Display (PFD). It also provides caution and warning data and recommends the safest possible re-designated landing site when the nominal landing site is no longer within the capability of the vehicle. The PFD and the EMS allow the crew to manually fly an entry trajectory profile from entry interface until parachute deploy having the flexibility to manually steer the vehicle to a selected landing site that best satisfies the priorities of the crew. The entry display feeder provides data from the ENIS and other components of the GNC flight software to the displays at the proper rate and in the proper units. It also performs calculations that are specific to the entry displays and which are not made in any other component of the flight software. In some instances, it performs calculations identical to those performed by the onboard primary guidance algorithm to protect against a guidance system failure. These functions and the interactions between the entry display feeder and the other components of the EMS are described