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The Lifestyle of Voluntary Simplicity (LOVOS) segment is composed of consumers who attempt to achieve sustainable consumption. The segment has been examined by only a few research studies so far, and none of them were conducted among Hungarian consumers. Therefore, the aim of our exploratory research is to examine the occurrence of the LOVOS consumer group among university students from Debrecen, Hungary. To achieve our aim, we first identified the five main value groups of the LOVOS lifestyle with an expert focus group interview. Based on the interview, a questionnaire survey was conducted among university students from Debrecen (N = 500). Based on the results, four value-based segments were identified, of which the Voluntary simplifiers’ cluster (39.6% of respondents) reflected the characteristics of the LOVOS lifestyle to the greatest extent. Based on the literature, it seemed necessary to segment this group further in terms of their commitment to individual values. As a result, three further clusters were created, of which, the Holistic simplifiers’ group (9.8% of respondents) showed the greatest commitment to the values of the LOVOS lifestyle. We concluded that the characteristics of voluntary simplifiers have already appeared among university students from Debrecen, but further research is needed to reveal the value orientation of the whole of Hungarian society.

Food neophobia is the fear or loathing of novel food, which may result in the rejection of the unfamiliar food item. The most frequently used and most reliable tool to measure adult food neophobia is the Food Neophobia Scale (FNS), which has been translated into several languages, making it possible to compare food neophobia levels around the world. The main objective of this research has been the adaptation and validation of the FNS in Hungary. In order to achieve the research objectives, a questionnaire survey was conducted on a representative sample of 500 adults; and, primarily, multivariate statistical tools were used. We found that despite the Hungarian population’s strong neophobic tendency, neophobia and neophilia are present at the same time. We identified two distinctive factors in the course of the exploratory factor analysis (“Willingness and trust” and “Rejection and particularity”), which distinctly separate the negatively and positively worded (reversed) FNS items. Based on these factors, four clusters were identified. Those belonging in the group of adventurous open-minded individuals constitute an ideal target group for the manufacturers of novel food items as well as products with unusual flavors, especially if those products also have health-enhancing and eco-friendly qualities.

Background Despite the increasing number of personalized nutrition services available on the market, nutrigenomics-based level of personalization is still the exception rather than a mainstream activity. This can be partly explained by various factors of consumer acceptance of the new technology. While consumer attitudes toward genetic tests aiming to reveal the risks of a predisposition to various illnesses have already been examined by several research studies worldwide; consumer acceptance of nutrigenomics-based personalized nutrition has only been examined by a significantly lower number of papers, especially in the Central and Eastern European region. Objective The purpose of this paper is to examine consumer acceptance of genetic-based personalized nutrition in Hungary. Therefore a national representative survey was conducted involving 1000 individuals. The starting point of the model used is the assumption that the consumer acceptance of personalized nutrition is influenced by its consumer perceptions, which are affected by psychological processes that, in a more general sense, determine acceptance of food innovations. Results The results show that 23.5% of respondents accept genetic test-based personalized nutrition. Women were found to reject the new technology in a significantly smaller proportion than men. The relationship between other demographic variables (i.e. age groups, education and subjective income level) and the perception of genetic-based personalized nutrition is also significant. Our results indicate that it is perceived cost/benefit that is most strongly related to genetically based personalized dietary preferences, followed by perceived risk and subjective norms. Perceived uncertainty and perceived behavioural control, however, have only a weak relationship with genetic-based personalized dietary preferences. Conclusions Compared with the magnitude of the effect of socio-demographic criteria, it can be concluded that, on the whole, psychological processes in the individual have a greater influence on the development of preferences for genetic-based personalized nutrition than any socio-demographic factor. This also confirms the trend that there are more and more value-added products or value propositions (where a significant part of the value added is to be found in product innovation), for which psychological characteristics are/should be given more emphasis among the segmentation criteria.

Several theories have emerged to study types of eating behavior leading to obesity, but most of the applied models are mainly related to food choice decisions and food consumer behavior. The purpose of this paper was to examine the eating attitudes of Hungarian consumers by applying the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ-R21). The national representative questionnaire involved 1000 individuals in Hungary in 2019. Several multivariate statistical techniques were applied for the data analysis: exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, multivariate data reduction techniques, and cluster analysis. This study successfully managed to distinguish the following factors: emotional eating, uncontrolled eating, and cognitive restraint. By using the factors, five clusters were identified: Uncontrolled Emotional Eaters; Overweight, Uncontrolled Eaters; Controlled, Conscious Eaters; the Uninterested; and the Rejecters; all of these could be addressed by public health policy with individually tailored messages. The empirical results led to rejection of the original Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ-R21), while the TFEQ-R16 model could be validated on a representative sample of adults, for the first time in Hungary.