Work Package 6– Field Study: The objective of WP6 is to conduct field studies across age groups and organisational settings, namely universities and workplace canteens. The study will be replicated in Denmark, France, Greece and the UK, representing a pan-European research context. Due to the reach of the industrial partners canteens will be used where knowledge of the menu along with its standardized recipes is documented, this provides for identification of the dishes and its ingredients, as well as the type of cooking method used. Notwithstanding, monitoring of the production process stages will take place allowing for the analysis of how recipes are prepared in practice, from the receipt of ingredients to the distribution of meals.
The uniqueness of this study is that it does not depend on self-report and therefore it does not suffer from social desirability bias which could deviate from actual behaviour. Identifying dish criteria which consumer’s value and ascertaining if these translate into choice and dietary behaviour is a crucial element of successful menu design. Perceived importance is one step in the elaboration and decision making process but is fundamental because it is unlikely that consumers will pay attention to and use something that they personally do not find important. This work package will confirm this causal pathway and evaluate whether consumers’ claimed importance leads to healthier and more appropriate food choice. Consumers have a ‘health risk’ budget and may compensate healthy purchases with unhealthy extras and it could be that this risk compensation could be influenced by other information. Real life market dynamics stemming from consumer response will allow evaluation of effectiveness of product health information and how this captures consumer’s attention or influences behaviour. A pre-test, post-test design will be implemented.