Tag: food

Innovation as a Survival Mechanism during the COVID-19 pandemic: Successful examples from the foodservice industry

By Anna Sophie Hauge, Marie Haadem and Meike Janssen

◦ 4 min read ◦

Innovation fosters creativity and generates growth – especially in times of crisis. The foodservice industry has been hit extremely hard by COVID-19 and the corresponding restrictions and lock-down measures. While many businesses in the foodservice industry struggled to survive, some took the opportunity to innovate. The question is then, what drove businesses to innovate in the middle of the crisis?

Drivers of firm innovation and the outcomes differ from case to case, however all can be connected to overarching themes. The external shock of the COVID-19 crisis is undoubtedly one such theme which has created new environments for supply and demand within the foodservice industry.

…times of crisis may provide an opportunity to develop dynamic capabilities more quickly than good financial times. A possible explanation is that ‘dynamic environments’ are needed to deploy dynamic capabilities

Alonso-Almeida et al., 2014

In the spring of 2021, we interviewed five courageous food-entrepreneurs, all using innovation as a survival mechanism throughout the crisis. We used John Bessant and Joe Tidd’s 13 drivers of innovation as the starting point to have a closer look into five small- to medium-sized innovative companies from Copenhagen and Oslo: a gourmet pizza takeaway, an online grocery delivery, an online fruit and vegetable delivery, a vegetarian takeaway, and a café takeaway. 

Besides the crisis itself being the most powerful driver of innovation, the need for change in the way people consume and offer food services proved to inspire numerous innovative measures (See Table 1). The trends and environments created by COVID-19 inspired new processes within our pre-existing case firms. For the three firms established pre-COVID-19, a large focus was put into the implementation of contactless home deliveries.

Additionally, we found that the crisis even triggered the innovation of completely new businesses. The two we interviewed exploited the rapidly changing environment to meet new needs, employing pandemic-friendly formats to deliver their services. An example is the highly integrated use of Instagram as a food ordering and communication platform. Innovation of business processes and products became survival means for our firms within the foodservice industry, as it helped them keep up with new consumer needs in the context of the pandemic. At the same time, these changes elevated the firms’ value propositions due to the new operating circumstances imposed by COVID-19. Products and processes were adapted to the COVID-19 trend of ‘support your locals’ throughout lockdown, through the integration of local suppliers and products. Innovations in relation to such trends helped target important social values during the pandemic.

Many of the innovations within the case companies originated from the necessity of minimizing the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Changes to the physical spaces of the foodservice firms and higher focus on contact through digital channels are examples of measures taken.

Characteristics of Success

Four out of the five firms were small in size. Each firm utilized collaborative relationships in the development of their products and services during the pandemic. Congruently, these firms explored new market opportunities; both in the expansion and adaptation of product lines and services, but also starting completely new businesses. Another characteristic was the integration of technology, such as online ordering and social media communication. We also found that the firms innovating during crises did not compromise on costs in their innovations. Ultimately, these characteristics developed and supported the firms’ crisis-driven innovation. It was also recognized that the pre-existing firms were innovative also before the crisis, which helped facilitate their innovation in times of distress. These characteristics are identical to those found in companies that innovated during the financial crisis in 2008.

Two additional characteristics were identified in the firms; firm flexibility and targeting niche segments. High flexibility was identified within the case firms, introducing options for pre-ordering, and thereby allowing for efficient and sustainable use of resources. Firm flexibility was also created through the use of digital modes of operations like online communication platforms and ordering systems. Lastly, four of the case firms have niche and urban customer segments. They target a trendsetting, educated urban-elite, all living in central Copenhagen or the West End of Oslo. Both the firms’ business models and unique selling propositions are non-typical for the given industry. Having such target groups and trend-setting concepts is seen to have enabled successful innovations. These two firm characteristics arguably provide the necessary infrastructure for the innovations’ success and are recognized to be essential for firm survival in times of crisis.

In the end

It is inspiring to see that times of crises can inspire people, and that courageous steps are being rewarded in a dynamic environment with open-minded customers. However, not all cafés and restaurants were as lucky as the ones in our study. Now that restrictions are no longer in place, the foodservice industry deserves our support, and you deserve to regularly treat yourself to a nice dinner or lunch.

About the Authors

Anna Sophie Hauge is studying her master’s in Finance and Strategic Management at Copenhagen Business School. Outside of her studies, she is currently working as a commercial student analytic at Løgismose, a Danish food brand, focused on quality and ecology.

Marie Haadem is currently finishing her Master’s in Management at IE Business School in Madrid, specialising within Finance and Investment. She will be joining Citigroup this July as a Banking Analyst for the EMEA Banking Analytics Group in Spain.

Meike Janssen is Associate Professor for Sustainable Consumption and Behavioural Studies, CBS Sustainability, CBS. Her research focuses on consumer behaviour in the field of sustainable consumption, in particular on consumers’ decision-making processes related to sustainable products and the drivers of and barriers to sustainable product choices.

PhPhoto by Kai Pilger on Unsplash

Are sustainable and healthy diets always compatible? Needs for an emic-oriented cultural research on sustainable consumption

By Fumiko Kano Glückstad

◦ 6 min read ◦

It is widely acknowledged that a plant-based diet is healthier than an animal-based diet (Willett, et al. 2019). However, a group of Japanese researchers recently published a thought-provoking article demonstrating that a lower diet-related Greenhouse gas emission (GHGE) has generally resulted in an inadequate nutrient intake among Japanese adults (Sugimoto et al. 2020).

Their results seem to support the fact that the Japanese Government has excluded any dietary-related initiatives from its long-term national strategies concerning the targeted 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. In other words, Japanese opinion leaders seem to challenge the generally accepted viewpoint of a direct positive correlation between a sustainable diet and a healthy diet, contradicting widely accepted European studies and initiatives (e.g. Sjörs et al. 2017). This apparent controversial observation motivated me to look into the historical development of meat consumption on a global scale. Most importantly, the recently published guiding principles by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO) in 2019 state that “Sustainable Healthy Diets” are a trade-off between the two dimensions: sustainability and healthiness of diets. Thus, countries should decide on such trade-offs in consideration with their situation and goals (FAO & WHO, 2019). 

The following figure indicates such a trade-off situation for various geographical regions and it clearly shows that the meat consumption in Western countries is obviously higher than the rest of the world such as compared to e.g., Africa or Asia, although a substantial increase of meat consumption is observed in both China and Japan.

In particular, the main increases observed in China and Japan seem to be well-synchronized with the periods of their respective economic developments that simultaneously triggered their modernization (Westernization) process in their markets. However, the curves of Japanese and Chinese meat consumption also show a noticeable difference. Whereas the meat consumption in China has steeply increased since the 1980es, Japan seems to moderate its increase from the early 1990es and ahead, which is most likely explained by their respective economic developments. However, in this blog, I want to supplement these observations with some personal insights on what has happened in Japan during this period through my work experiences in the related industry.

Meat consumption in this blog refers to the average supply of meat across the population shown in this figure. Food supply is defined as food accessible for human consumption meaning the food remaining for human use after deduction of all non-food utilizations. Source: Our World in Data https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/meat-supply-per-person

During the Japanese bubble economy in the 1980es to the early 1990es, the Japanese middle class had increasingly wider opportunities to be exposed to the Western food culture due to their Westernization. This somewhat alarmed key Japanese health professionals, nutritionists, food experts and industries who considered a ”Western lifestyle and food culture” as a source of lifestyle-related chronic diseases e.g., diabetes 2 and cardiovascular issues, which would gradually impact Japanese consumers.

This subsequently triggered a countless number of initiatives aimed to nudge a wide range of the population towards a healthier diet. The initiatives were eventually formalized as a Health Promotion Act in 2002 and the Basic Law on “Shokuiku (food and nutrition education)” in 2005 by the Japanese government (MAFF, 2019).

Source: Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries. 2019. “A Guide to Shokuiku.” https://www.maff.go.jp/j/syokuiku/guide/pdf/00_en_guide.pdf

The Shokuiku act has since become a comprehensive program targeting everyone from school children to the elderly, and its initiatives have involved a broad range of Japanese stakeholders, not only the central and local governments, health professionals and nutritionists but also food and restaurant businesses and their consumers.

The Shokuiku program has promoted the nutritional education from a holistic viewpoint and emphasized the importance of enjoying healthy meals from societal and cultural perspectives through various sensory food experiences. As a consumer researcher in the 1990es in one of Japan’s largest high-tech companies producing various kitchen appliances, I also personally participated in a variety of initiatives involving consumer organizations, health professionals, nutritionists and food and restaurant businesses to nudge consumers towards a healthy diet at that time. 

In a European context, nudging consumers towards a sustainable and healthy diet usually implies the replacement of an animal-based diet with a plant-based diet with emphasis on ingredients. One major difference to the Japanese nudging initiatives is that the Shokuiku promotion has encouraged consumers to learn how to select “nutritionally balanced meals” in their daily life while enjoying variations in sensory food experiences. Consumers have many ways to achieve this by following the “Japanese food guide spinning top” that can be easily followed by a wide range of population groups, i.e. from school children to the elderly (see the below picture). The maintenance of a moderate meat consumption level observed from the Japanese curve in the above figure might be partially attributed to such ‘enjoyable’ Shokuiku initiatives (see Yoneda, 2019).

Japan has been able to moderate its overall meat consumption without specific promotions of plant-based diets also thanks to the traditional Japanese food culture that is originally rooted in a plant-rich diet. Thus, in a Japanese context, it is perceived possible to achieve a well-balanced diet while simultaneously enjoying variations in sensory food experiences, in other words, nudging a healthy diet can be perceived as an enjoyable experience. Interestingly, Kanemoto et al. (2019) recently reported that meat consumption only weakly explains the difference between high- and low food carbon footprints (FCF) among 60,000 Japanese households. This study ponders that Japanese should (also) consider restricting their consumption in other areas than meat consumption with a higher estimated FCF such as restaurant foods, confectionary and alcohol. 

Source: Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries. 2019. “A Guide to Shokuiku.” https://www.maff.go.jp/j/syokuiku/guide/pdf/00_en_guide.pdf

These observed trends indicate the importance of fully understanding social, cultural and dietary contexts in various countries and regions when researching on sustainable food consumption because food is inherently deeply rooted in the specific cultures. In other words, sustainable consumption studies should ideally shed more light on an emic approach addressing a specific sample of that region and discuss adaptability of such studies to countries outside of the specific region with due respect of the embedded cultural contexts. 

About the Author:

Fumiko Kano Glückstad is Associate Professor of Cross-Cultural Cognition at the Copenhagen Business School. She works in the area of cross-cultural psychology and her recent project “iBeauty” funded by the third largest Japanese cosmetic company investigates associations between personal values, beauty and well-being in cross-cultural contexts. She previously worked as a consumer researcher and product concept designer of kitchen appliances at Panasonic Corporation, one of the largest Japanese electronics industry enterprises.

Has COVID-19 changed our relationship with food?

CBS is involved in two large-scale international studies about people’s changes in food-related habits during the pandemic 

By Meike Janssen

It might sound familiar: Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, photos of homemade bread, fancy meals and desserts are circulating on social media while empty pizza cartons are piling up in the neighbours’ garbage bin. It seems that many people have changed their food-related habits during the pandemic, partly in opposite directions.

That is why consumer researchers from the Consumer and Behavioural Insights Group (CBIG) at CBS Sustainability launched two large-scale consumer studies [1] in collaboration with international colleagues. The studies analyse the shifts in terms of buying, cooking and eating habits that have been brought on by the pandemic and the related restrictions and lockdown measures. 

Food-related behaviour is to a large degree subject to habits and routines. Changes in eating patterns are normally occurring rather slowly over longer periods of time.

Besides, we know that food consumption is largely influenced not only by personal preferences but also by context, i.e. where we eat and with whom we eat.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have been experiencing the unprecedented case that many people have spent much more time at home. That also means many people have eaten more meals at home than before the pandemic. Now, we are beginning to understand what consequences these changes in the context of food consumption have had, e.g. in terms of how (un)balanced the diets have been or whether people’s cooking skills have improved. 

Findings

Our data was collected at the end of April / beginning of May 2020 among more than 1.000 consumers in Denmark. The food frequency questionnaire revealed a number of interesting trends. Depending on the type of food, 10-45% of consumers changed their consumption frequency during the pandemic compared to before. In all food categories, we observed diverging trends with some people having decreased and others increased consumption. We observed the highest rates of change in the categories frozen food, canned food, and cake and biscuits, while the lowest rates of change occurred in the categories bread, dairy products, and alcoholic drinks.

For all types of fresh food analysed, the proportion of people who had decreased their consumption was higher than the proportion of people who had increased consumption, i.e. the overall average consumption of fresh food significantly decreased during the pandemic. The consumption of sweet snacks, by contrast, significantly increased.

Partly, the observed changes in food consumption can be explained by decreases in food shopping frequencies. As expected, a decrease in shopping frequency was significantly related to a decrease of fresh food consumption and an increase in the consumption of frozen food and canned food but also of sweet snacks. 

Photo by  Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash

We further found significant effects of restriction and lockdown measures on changes in food consumption, i.e. the effect of the closure of:

  • physical workplaces
  • work canteens
  • cafés and restaurants
  • schools and kindergartens.

While it is not surprising that these restrictions impacted upon people’s food consumption, we were surprised to see that those people affected by the same restrictions were likely to change their consumption of certain types of food in similar ways. 

For instance, people affected by a closure of their physical workplace were likely to decrease the consumption of bread, cake and biscuits. Families with children tended to increase the consumption of fruit and veggies, presumably in a pursuit to eat more healthily. At the same time, they also increased the consumption of bread, sweets and chocolate, and alcoholic drinks, perhaps as a means to cope with stress.

Single-person households, by contrast, tended to decrease their consumption of fruit and vegetables and fresh meat, probably because they ate less cooked meals. They also tended to decrease the consumption of bread, and sweets and chocolate. 

The results demonstrate that the relatively strict restrictions and lockdown measures in spring 2020 affected different people and households in very different ways. While some people spent more time with meal preparation and cooking, others did the opposite.

The results provide insights, e.g. for the areas of healthy eating, food system resilience, and behavioural change. We are currently compiling recommendations for decision-makers in the food sector on how to prevent detrimental effects of the pandemic on people’s food-related habits. Key insights of the two studies will soon be published in scientific journals.

References

[1] Our relationship with food (www.food-covid-19.org), and Corona Cooking Survey (https://coronacookingsurvey.com)

About the Author

Meike Janssen is Associate Professor for Sustainable Consumption and Behavioural Studies, CBS Sustainability, Copenhagen Business School. Her research focuses on consumer behaviour in the field of sustainable consumption, in particular on consumers’ decision-making processes related to sustainable products and the drivers of and barriers to sustainable product choices.

Photo by nrd on Unsplash

Consumers fall for food products with nutrition claims – what about you?

By Meike Janssen

In a recent study, colleagues from the University of Kassel, Germany and me discovered that consumers fall for food products with nutrition claims on the package front.

Nutrition claims?

Nutrition claims are short claims highlighting a particular beneficial nutritional property, e.g. fat-free, high protein, or rich in vitamin C. In the study, we sent consumers shopping in a laboratory supermarket with real products on the shelf. The interesting fact: Consumers could choose between three orange juices with identical nutritional profiles; only that one orange juice carried the nutrition claim rich in vitamin C. And this was the orange juice most consumers bought, even though the other two orange juices contained the same amount of vitamin C (for details about the experiment, which claims were tested, and how the claims rotated across the brands, see the end of this post).

Interestingly, all types of consumers fell for the orange juice with the nutrition claim: consumers seeking for healthy products as well as consumers not caring about healthy products; consumers who knew a lot about nutrition as well as those who knew relatively little about nutrition.

Source: Johann Steinhauser; Meike Janssen; Ulrich Hamm (2019)

You might wonder: Is it allowed to prominently highlight, on the package front, an ingredient that is typically included in all products of a certain type? For vitamin C in 100% orange juice, the answer is yes.

The good and bad news

The good news is: EU law stipulates the conditions under which nutrition claims are allowed. So nutrition claims can generally be considered trustworthy. The bad news is: A nutrition claim does not mean the product is overall healthy. A nutrition claim only refers to a single ingredient.

>>For instance, it is allowed to label candy containing high amounts of sugar as fat-free. If you ask me, that is a problematic issue. <<

Are consumers stupid or irrational?

How come consumers can be ‘manipulated’ so easily, by simply highlighting one beneficial ingredient that is, in fact, in all 100% orange juices? Is it because consumers are stupid and know little about vitamin C in orange juice? No, that would not explain why even consumers with a high nutrition knowledge fell for the product with the nutrition claim. Then is it because consumers behave irrationally when they do grocery shopping? Again, the answer is no.

Squirrel_photos on Pixabay

Consumers look for simple heuristics when choosing between similar food products. When grocery shopping, we are confronted with a lot of information. Since most of us do not want to spend hours in the supermarket comparing several products and reading all information on product packages, we use ‘cues’ that help us navigate through the information jungle.

Every consumer has his/her own cues that he/she uses, often subconsciously. These cues simplify our choice tasks and allow us to make quick decisions. And the important thing is: in the end, we are usually quite happy with our product choice. Most of us walk out of the supermarket and do not worry about whether we really made the best possible choice. So in that sense, relying on simple choice heuristics and using cues like ingredients, brand and price makes perfect sense for us, at least when we do grocery shopping. There is nothing irrational about it.

Take-home message: Better check nutritional information

Whether or not you want to use nutrition claims as one of ‘your cues’ when choosing food, remains your own decision. Just bear in mind the following: Only because one brand highlights that the product contains a beneficial ingredient, does not mean other similar products do not have the same benefits. And only because a product carries a nutrition claim, does not mean the product is healthy – it might contain high amounts of other unhealthy ingredients.

If you are really interested in buying a nutritious product, better check the nutritional information on the back of the package and compare several products. You might find a product with better nutritional properties without a nutrition claim on the front.

Details about the experiment

The study participants were recruited in the pedestrian area in the city of Kassel, Germany. The 156 participants went shopping in a laboratory supermarket. They could choose between three orange juices, each of which labelled with a claim:

  • taste claim ‘simply delicious’,
  • health claim ‘Vitamin C contributes to the normal function of the immune system’, or
  • nutrition claim ‘rich in vitamin C’.

To make the purchase simulation as realistic as possible, existing brands and products were offered on the shelf. We only added the claims. The products were from other German speaking countries (Austria and Switzerland) so that the participants were not familiar with them. We wanted to rule out strong brand effects. Across the sample, the three claims rotated among the three brands.

The study results are published in two journal articles:

About the Author

Meike Janssen is Associate Professor for Sustainable Consumption and Behavioural Studies, CBS Sustainability, Copenhagen Business School

Photo by Joshua Rawson-Harris on Unsplash

Further reading: Let Me Lend You a Hand: How Behavioural Economics Can Restore Trust in Science

Behavioural change in the work environment: a first review on MSC’s sustainable food policy.

By Jan Bauer.

  • MSC reviews six months of its sustainable food policy
  • Setting defaults can be highly effective
  • Guiding principles for the “right” defaults are not always easy to determine

During the summer 2017, the Department for Management, Society & Communication (MSC) at CBS hold a competition among its members to come up with ideas to foster sustainable behaviour within the daily work-life of the department. In addition to talking the talk in lectures and research, MSC hosts the CBS center for Corporate Social Responsibility, we also wanted to walk it.

Among many interesting submissions, the newly founded sustainable infrastructure task force (SIT) awarded the best idea, based on the potential impact and the feasibility of application within MSC. An idea to reduce the consumption of meat was declared as the winner. According to many studies, the reduction of meat reduces CO2 emissions and is associated with various health benefits.

Despite this evidence, banning meat in the department would have certainly and rightfully created substantial backlash. Banning meat would have unlikely been supported by a majority of the department members or its leadership as it can be arguably considered as an overly strong infringement of individual freedom.

Behavioural policy and the power of defaults

Based on a behavioral policy approach, the new food policy, publicly discussed in a department meeting and implemented in October 2017, ultimately changed the choice architecture of the way people order meals for meetings and events. For a trial period of six months, all meals became vegetarian by default; meaning that people get a vegetarian meal unless they actively opt-out and order a meat-based dish with a short email reply or by ticking a button (see example from a recent workshop invitation).

This idea is based on the principle of libertarian paternalism, which aims to steer peoples’ behaviour without restricting the freedom of choice and has been famously advocated by our colleague Cass Sunstein.

The power and controversy about purposefully setting defaults is often discussed in the context of organ donation. There is little doubt about the fact that people’s inertia to register as a donor can be linked to preventable deaths under the opt-out rule. The Netherlands recently change the default on the issue, but not all countries are expected to follow their example.

Predominant support for a sustainable default rule

The trial period of our food policy helped to understand the difficulties of implementing such a policy, e.g. what to do when you cannot ask participants. But it also aimed to collect data on how many vegetarian and meat-based meals were ordered. After the end of the trial period, a survey was conducted to elicit peoples’ attitudes towards and experiences with the policy.

More than 90% of the self-reported food orderings were vegetarian and the survey revealed that a majority supports to expand the policy beyond the trial period. However, the policy was not exclusively received with praise. Different concerns were raised about the policy, including the perception not feeling free to publicly speak up against such an initiative aimed and officially framed to “save the planet”.

Guiding principles: scientific evidence or democratic process?

I am confident that this pilot project will resolve its remaining issues, but the process itself has been a valuable learning experience and sparked some reflection. One issue is the rather simple question on what guiding principle should the default be selected in such an example. Two ideas come to mind instantly: assuming there is corporate interest in the health of employees and low CO2 emissions, the scientific evidence suggests that the vegetarian default should be the preferred way. However, decisions based on naturally broad scientific claims might miss important case-specific aspects, neglect the (corporate) culture and individual preferences.

Alternatively, setting the default by a democratic process might suffer from limited debate for such a morally loaded topic and individual biases against the abstract value of one’s own long-term health or reducing global warming. In principle, the aim should be to maximize overall welfare and nudge people to be “better off as judged by the themselves”. For reasons outlined above, it is not always easy or even fully clear, how and when individual judgement of such a policy should be assessed.

Judgement at the right time

When it comes to the food itself, having the light, vegetarian meal could be judged as less appealing before or during lunch when being extremely hungry, but evaluation might already change shortly after the meal. Reflecting on a meal in a satiated state can alter the importance of different aspects. Research suggests that hunger shifts preferences towards more palatable and less healthy foods, but also repeated exposure to a specific food increases preference for it. Hence, only 30 minutes could make all the difference, but potential benefits to health and environment might manifest in 30 years and only by then alter retrospective evaluation of such a policy.

Even though there is no natural default, most people like eating meat despite potential adverse health effects, including myself, which makes justifying any default rule difficult. In our case, all approaches we tried point towards the same result, which makes us hopeful to do the right thing. A decision to prolong the experimental policy by another year was recently made in the Department Forum. However, it is important to keep in mind that at its worst, this specific policy presents a die-hard meat lover with a vegetarian meal that he forgot to opt-out of – a hopefully rare event I am nevertheless sorry for.

Jan Bauer is Assistant Professor at Copenhagen Business School and part of CBS’ Governing Responsible Business Research Environment. His research interests are in the fields of health economics and consumer behaviour. As part of the Nudge-it Project, he focused on fostering healthy food choices of children and adults.

Photo: courtesy of Felix Bärmann.