The last few decades testify that consumers’ concerns for healthier lifestyles and environment care are driving forces for reshaping food buying intentions and their perspectives on food quality. The present study identifies the importance that consumers attach to quality, health, and environment selected cues of purchased food products. More precisely, to elicit preferences for social, environmental, and qualitative food cues, a survey instrument was developed and applied on 797 Belgian and Romanian consumers. Our findings suggest that investigated consumers most frequently use freshness, taste, and appearance to evaluate food quality. The use frequency of food quality cues related to health is primarily influenced by the attention paid to food quality. The most relevant cues of food healthiness are ingredients, nutrition facts, and additives and for food environmental impact are packaging, food origin, and production type. It is concluded that food quality receives high attention both from Belgian and Romanian consumers and health and environment related cues can be used as a means of improving consumer health and environmental protection.

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Abstract:The main purpose of this paper is to explore consumers' perceptions of organic food and examine whether organic food products are perceived in the North-West Region of Romania as offering health and environmental benefits or as simply another sine qua non condition to be integrated into the luxurious yuppie lifestyle. The inspiration for our study came from witnessing the stereotypical image of organic food consumers as "stylish, trendy, fancy consumers" in the last three to five years. Scientific evidence on the perceptions of organic food is based on a probabilistic survey. The results indicate an environmental consciousness of organic food consumers in North-Western Region of Romania in terms of organic food: a high percentage of consumers believe that organic food is healthier than conventional food (87%) and that it contributes to environmental protection more than conventional food (75%). A statistically significant difference (p < 0.05) was observed between people with higher education and those without higher education concerning the following beliefs: belief that most people consume organic products because they are in fashion, and belief that organic food contributes to environmental protection.

<p>Rabbit is one of the most versatile livestock species, responding successfully to bio-economic principles, which promote a clever use of resources and their conversion into added value products, such as functional foods (FFs). The excellent nutritive and dietetic properties of rabbit meat justify granting it the attributes of FFs. Based on the premise that it is the consumer who ultimately decides what kind of meat to buy, a consumer focus should be a core factor in private or public meat sector strategies. Following this assumption, the aim of this study is to contribute to understanding Romanian consumer behaviour related to rabbit meat as a functional food and to provide information on how to better market rabbit meat as FF in the domestic market. As far as the authors know, this study is the first one to assess and report on Romanian consumer perceptions, knowledge and behaviours related to rabbit meat. Consequently, the variables investigated reflect rabbit meat consumption habits. They also reveal preferences related to the acquisition of rabbit meat, perceptions on future rabbit meat consumption, perceptions of rabbit meat characteristics, perceptions of rabbit meat main characteristics compared to other types of meat, and rabbit meat consumption deterrents. The survey results show that rabbit meat is perceived as lean and low cholesterol, healthier and tastier than other meats, but more expensive, that its consumption is low, being 2.2 times lower than chicken and 1.8 times lower than pork, and that 29.6% of people surveyed have never eaten rabbit meat. The findings ascertain that the understanding of Romanian consumer behaviour related to rabbit meat as FF is an optimal tool for changing behaviour patterns towards a more sustainable market. The transfer of this knowledge towards marketers mainly focusing on how to increase consumer satisfaction for FFs, especially meat, is the leverage for designing successful businesses regarding market re-orientation, development or even reduction of health cost.</p>