No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

This study provides an explorative analysis of the potential appreciation manifested by 312 Italian consumers for functional confectionery products, obtained from high-amylose soft wheat flours (high-amylose confectionery products, HACPs). An online questionnaire was administered in 2021, which assessed respondents' willingness to pay (WTP) a premium price for HACPs with respect to non-functional confectionery products. Detailed information about respondents and their families was collected and put in relation with the willingness, or not, to pay a premium price for HACPs through a Binary Logit model. Two thirds of respondents were willing to pay a premium price for HACPs, that stood at +12.3%. Analysis of the results of the Binary Logit model led to highlight that respondents' WTP for HACPs is positively influenced by age, level of family income, satisfaction with the latter during the COVID-19 pandemic, habit to purchase food products on e-commerce channels, adoption of healthy eating styles and belief that functional foods can contribute to improve well-being. At the opposite, respondents' WTP is negatively influenced by family size, presence of dependent members and, interestingly, habit to practice physical activity with high frequency. Based on these findings, useful insights also in support of confectionery industry and commercial distribution are finally reported.

Water management is a key factor to optimize fruit quality and yield of processing tomatoes which are site-specific and influenced by environmental conditions e.g., soil, temperature, precipitation. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacity of a low-cost wireless soil moisture sensor in determining the irrigation level for optimizing the marketable yield, fruit quality and economic profit of processing tomato. A two-years (2017–2018) trial was conducted in open field, applying nine drip irrigation levels controlled by wireless soil moisture capacitance sensors. The irrigation levels were as follows: 13.2, 16.7, 25.4, 33.3, 50.0, 62.3, 82.5, 100 and 186.8% of water restitution based on soil moisture sensor readings. Because of the crop stress induced by heavy rainfalls occurring in 2018 growing season, total and marketable yields reached higher maximum values in 2017 than 2018. In 2017, total and marketable yields were maximized by supplying 92.8% and 96.2% of irrigation level, respectively. Moreover, 95.6% and 91.2% of irrigation level were necessary in 2018 to maximize total and marketable yield, respectively. In both growing seasons, marketable yield variation was due to changes of both fruit number and fruit mean weight. Total soluble solids of fruit juice linearly decreased by increasing the irrigation level with a more pronounced effect in the driest growing season (2017). Economic analysis demonstrated that 100% of irrigation level should be preferred by the Italian farmers since it maximized the operating margins of processing tomatoes in both years. To conclude, the use of the tested low-cost wireless soil moisture sensor is an effective tool to manage the level of irrigation and optimize the processing tomato yield and economic benefits for farmers.