Consumer behavior changes differently in emergencies. Understanding consumer food stockpiling behavior during COVID-19 pandemic can provide critical information for governments and policymakers to adjust inventory and response strategies. This paper analyzed consumer food stockpiling behavior, including the change of food reserve scale and willingness to pay for fresh food reserves in COVID-19. Our paper shows that the scale of food reserve extends from 3.37 to 7.37 days after the outbreak of COVID-19; if available, consumers on average are willing to pay 18.14 yuan (60.47%) premium for fresh products reserves. The result shows that food stockpiling behavior is fueled by a set of multiple motivations and subjective risk perception. Female, high education level and high-income consumers were more likely to reserve larger scale food reserves, but consumers' willingness to pay for fresh food reserves is determined by income. This study was conducted when new infection cases continued to rise in the world. The story of food stockpiling during the COVID-19 pandemic in China is similar with the rest of world. Consumer stockpiling behavior in China can also be expanded to other countries to predict the change of food demand and understand more about consumer preferences in emergencies.

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A COVID-19 vaccine is the key to beating the virus, and effective vaccines are going to be available in the near future. It is urgent to estimate the acceptability of COVID-19 vaccines and their value to individuals, in order to develop an effective public vaccination strategy. Based on a survey of 1,188 randomly selected respondents in China, we analyzed Chinese consumers’ willingness to get a COVID-19 vaccine and their willingness to pay for it. We find that 79.41% of the respondents are willing to get vaccinated in China, and the average amount that they’re willing to pay for a COVID-19 vaccine shot is 130.45 yuan. However, though the elderly are at higher risk of infection and the disease could be fatal for them, they are less willing to get the vaccine and not willing to pay as much for the shot. Subsidies and health communication concerning COVID-19 vaccines should be provided in order to expand vaccination coverage.

Purpose -This paper aims to analyze the factors that influence urban consumers' attitudes towards food safety after the melamine scandal. Design/methodology/approach -Based on the research about the attitudes of urban consumers in Nanjing towards the safety of milk powder after the melamine scandal in 2008, this paper adopts the ordered logit model to test which factors significantly influence consumers' attitudes. Findings -The findings suggest that: first, there is a common concern among consumers about the safety of milk powder after the melamine scandal; second, according to the research, the concern is in inverse relation to the level of educational attainment, consumers' awareness of food safety incidents and their opinion of governments' action after the incident. Moreover, those who always have a concern about the safety of the alternatives to milk powder are more easily affected. Originality/value -Different from other researches, the paper focuses on consumers' attitudes towards food safety by studying a specific case, namely the melamine scandal.

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Historically, humans have created many sustainable practices, and among the most famous and successful sustainable practice is the rice-fish system in China. While previous studies have investigated eco-labeling food from various angles, consumer perception and preference of food produced from traditional sustainable practices (traditional sustainable food) remain unexplored. Taking the historical rice-fish system as an example, we examined consumers' perception and willingness to pay (WTP) for rice produced by a rice-fish system, by using data from 1422 consumers from China. Our paper shows that most Chinese consumers do understand the meaning of the rice-fish system and perceive the traditional sustainable system as environmentally friendly and producing high-quality food. The premium that consumers are willing to pay for rice from a rice-fish system is about 41%. Consumers who perceive the linkage between sustainable production and food quality and safety have a significantly higher WTP for traditional sustainable rice (p-value = 0.000). Interestingly, the perception of environment risk does not directly cause more traditional sustainable food consumption, but those who self-proclaimed as environmentalists are willing to pay a premium for traditional sustainable rice. Females, people with high family income, and people with children are more willing to pay for traditional sustainable rice. Understanding consumer perception and preference of traditional sustainable food provides critical information for Chinese policymakers to develop a cheap and efficient way to keep traditional sustainable practices and promote sustainable food consumption.

Branding agricultural products are popular in the online market, but little is known about consumers' preferences for agricultural product brands in an E‐commerce environment. This study analyzed consumer preferences for three types of agricultural product brands and the interaction effect among them in an E‐commerce environment with a choice experiment. Our results show that regional brand shows remarkable complementary effects on grower brand and store brand, implying regional brand can enhance the value of other brands. Also, we found that there is a substitution effect between grower brand and store brand. Interestingly, we find that consumers prefer cheap or expensive fuji apples rather than middle‐price ones, implying significant consumption stratification in the Chinese online food market. This study also confirms the importance of the time window of delivery. This paper can provide critical information to optimize brand strategies of agricultural products in an E‐commerce environment. [EconLit citations: D12, Q11, Q13]

Most previous studies have investigated country-of-origin effect for agricultural products from the economically developed country, but few have focused on the impact of country-of-origin on agricultural products from economically developing countries. Using a national online survey in France, we determine French consumers' perceptions and preferences for fresh fruit from China. Results of ordered logit models show that fresh fruit from China was perceived as low quality and unsafe. Respondents who care about country-of-origin were less likely to purchase fresh fruit from China, while those who care about brand were more likely to buy Chinese fresh fruit. Risk perception and quality perception both had a significant impact on the purchase of Chinese fresh fruit. Results of latent class models obtained with key consumer demographics show that heterogeneous preferences exist among different consumer groups. The results provide critical information to both China and other economically developing countries in their efforts to improve market penetration in economically developed countries.