Consumer's Attitudes towards Innovation for a More Sustainable Agri-Food System

Dear Colleagues,

It is a pleasure to invite you to submit manuscripts or spread this call in the field of ‘consumer's attitudes towards innovation for a more sustainable agri-food system’. The rapid development of technology is changing people’s food consumption patterns and speeds up the completion of global agri-food systems becoming sustainable. Producing cultured meat is an emerging solution for the increased meat demand and reduces the resource use and GHG emissions in meat production. Blockchain-based food traceability system can help solve trust problems in traditional food traceability systems. E-commerce influences people’s food habits with the more accessibility and avaliability to food resources, particularly during the Covid-19 epidemic. Artificial intelligence (AI), virtually realibity (VR) and 3Dprint improve the precision production and service in the agri-food industry. All these innovations have significantly positive influences on the fulfilment of several UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as Zero Hunger, Good Health and Well-being, Responsible Consumption and Production, and/or Climate Action.

However, there is a lack of understanding of consumers’ attitudes towards these innovations since they are still embryonic as academic research topics. As such, an increased need exists for relevant knowledge in order to develop effective policies and marketing strategies to promote innovative food products and services among consumers in order to lead a more sustainable agri-food system.

The Special issue welcomes all areas of consumer research (review, empirical, short-communication or conceptual  studies) in relation to the following innovations in the agri-food system:

• Cultured meat or other meat substitutes
• Blockchain-based food traceability or other innovations related to food traceability
• Food shopping with different e-commerce modes e.g. B2C, O2O food delivery services, New Retail etc.
• AI in food shopping e.g. robots in supermarkets, drone delivery etc.
• All other innovations in the agri-food system which have positive influences on the completion of one or several UN SDGs e.g. VR, 3Dprint etc.

Dr. Ou Wang
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• consumer
• cultured meat
• meat substitues
• blockchain
• food traceability
• e-commcerce
• online food shopping
• drone delivery
• new retail
• food delivery
• b2c
• o2o
• innovation
• AI
• VR
• 3D print
• SDG
• sustainability