During COVID‐19 lockdown, individuals were asked to leave their home only to meet the most urgent needs, such as grocery purchases and medical emergencies. This study aimed to know the consumers' health safety practices and their concerns toward grocery shopping and to know their adoption of healthier food as a result of the outbreak. An online survey was conducted during the second month of the COVID‐19 lockdown. This study includes 212 respondents. Appropriate statistical tools were used to analyze the data. The findings of the study revealed that females were ahead compared to males in pursuing health safety practices during grocery shopping, but the frequency of following physical distancing for both males and females was not up to the mark. The most important concern about grocery shopping was fear of unavailability of stocks and fear of getting infected from grocery storekeepers. It was also found that, compared to earlier, people had reduced their frequency of grocery shopping and tried to shop quickly and efficiently. People bought more packaged foods and also made purchases from brands that were new to them. As a result of the COVID‐19 pandemic, the adoption of healthier food habits varied significantly with gender, age, and household income of the respondents. This study indicates that there is a need to raise awareness among people on how to shop safely in grocery stores and that good hygiene practice should be followed in grocery stores to mitigate the risk of infection to consumers.

PurposeConfusion over the interpretation of date labels is one of the main causes of food waste at the retail and consumer level. The purpose of this study was to determine consumer understanding of food date labels and to assess consumer perception of food waste based on these labels.Design/methodology/approachIt is a cross-sectional study carried out in India. Google forms were used to administer an online structured questionnaire. A total of 389 individuals participated in the study. The data were analyzed using Chi-square statistics and ordinal logistic regression.FindingsThe results affirmed that most of the consumers frequently looked at date labels while purchasing food products, but many of them did not have adequate knowledge of commonly used date label terms. In particular, respondents tended to misunderstand the “best before” date label as the last date for safe consumption, that is, a safety indicator that is not correct. The study indicated that lack of appropriate knowledge, misunderstanding of date labels and lack of complete information contributed toward unnecessary and excess discard of foods that may otherwise perfectly be safe and edible.Practical implicationsRaising public awareness, educating consumers about food date labels and pushing for standardizing the information on date labels by providing adequate guidelines to companies would enable consumers to better interpret the labels, and it would lead to lowering the unnecessary food wastage.Originality/valueThis study fulfills an important knowledge gap in respect of examining the food date label knowledge and its relationship with food waste practices in India.

Nutrition labels are public health tools that provide information about nutritional content of ingredients present in the food products. The labels assist consumers to differentiate between alternatives and make informed choices regarding food products. This study is conducted in New Delhi, India to assess the consumer usage, understanding, and influence of nutrition labels while purchasing ultra-processed food products. Mall intercept survey was carried out to collect the data from consumers with the help of a structured questionnaire. A total of 303 valid responses were collected and analyzed through descriptive statistics, Chi-square test, and Fisher exact test. Findings of the study revealed that most of the consumers do read nutrition labels during purchase of ultra-processed food products but its usage frequency is not up to the mark. Only about one third of the consumers read nutrition labels "always," whereas female consumers uses nutrition label more frequently than the male consumers. The most common reason for reading nutrition labels was to "eat healthy food" and "for dietary purpose", while lack of time, lack of interest, and difficult terminology were the most common reasons for not reading nutrition labels at the time of purchase of ultra-processed food. It was also found in this study that those respondents who read nutrition labels regularly during purchasing, their buying decision gets influenced positively through nutrition label information. This study also indicates that there is a need to promote the benefits of reading nutrition labels among consumers of developing countries to facilitate healthy eating habits.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between online reviews and ratings through text mining and empirical techniques. An Indian food delivery portal (Zomato.com) was used, where 50 restaurants on Presence Across Nation (PAN) basis were selected through stratified random sampling. A total of 2530 reviews were collected, scrutinized, and analysed. Using the NVivo software for qualitative analysis, seven themes were identified from collected reviews, out of which, the 'delivery' theme was explored further for identifying sub-themes. Linear regression modelling was used to identify the variables affecting delivery ratings and sentiment analysis was also performed on the identified sub-themes. Regression results revealed that hygiene and pricing (delivery subthemes) demonstrated lower delivery ratings. These variables can be established as indicators for restaurants and related online food delivery services to build their business model around them. Similarly, negative sentiments were observed in pricing and hygiene sub-themes. Restaurants and online food services can enhance hygiene levels of their food delivery process in order to receive higher delivery ratings. Similarly, pricing of food items can be modified such that customers are not deterred from ordering the items-food and ordering service do not become cost-prohibitive. This study devised a standardized methodology for analysing vast amounts of online user-generated content (UGC).Findings from this study can be extrapolated to other sectors and service industries such as, tourism, cleaning, transportation, hospitals and engineering especially during the pandemic.