An investigation into customer loyalty to food retailers posed a methodological problem – namely how to delve beneath the surface and access consumers' unspoken feelings, perceptions, attitudes and values. This paper explains how four different projective techniques were used to access the thoughts and feelings of 160 interviewees in order to obtain a thorough understanding of the interviewees' satisfaction with their ‘main’ food retailer and to characterize the relationship between the customer and retailer. A brief description of the use, analysis and examples of cartoon friends, word association, personification and mini case studies was provided in order to describe their role in the data collection process.

The adolescence period is the stage in the life cycle in which individuals begin to develop independent decision making related to their social environment including their dietary intake. The period is fundamental in the development of longer term eating habits that may be reflected in adulthood. This study aimed to investigate the decision‐making process of adolescents and their dietary behaviour in the achievement of a balanced diet and to determine the underlying factors that may affect these choices. To meet this aim, a three phase data collection was utilized. In phase 1, a baseline questionnaire (n = 239) measured factors affecting dietary behaviour and the barriers in the achievement of a balanced diet. Phase two employed and measured respondents’ (n = 235) independent decision making by rating nineteen menu choices which reflected all options of dietary guidelines. This was analyzed through conjoint analysis. In phase three a subsample (n = 55) from the first two phases completed a food map which determined underlying reasons for food decisions and choice behaviour. Results revealed that when adolescents are given free choice they tend to follow an unbalanced diet with some diets raising concerns for their current and future health. Fifty‐seven percent of respondents displayed serious concerns in their dietary choice of which 18% were identified as requiring immediate intervention. The most noticeable factors affecting dietary choice were the desire to eat foods high in fat and carbohydrates and low in fruit and vegetable consumption. Food‐mapping indicated prior knowledge and attitudes had no effect on the choices made but that that behaviour of parents in the preparation of meals at home and peers in the selection of snack choices had the most influence on the unbalanced diet.

A significant proportion of consumers in the UK continue to adopt a diet consisting largely of nutritionally unbalanced foods. The adolescent period has been identified as being formative in the development of long-term eating habits as the individual achieves greater control over their food choice. By examining the current eating behaviour of a sample of adolescents, the aim of this study was to establish why they are not utilizing their knowledge to choose nutritionally balanced foods. A two-stage data collecting procedure was adopted. In stage 1, respondents (n = 136) completed a questionnaire that measured demographic and social factors, knowledge, attitudes, pre-existing behaviour with respect to food and the influence of family, peers, the media and government campaigns on their eating behaviour. In stage 2, a subsection of the respondents (n = 20) completed a foodmap, which revealed the network of relationships involved in the adolescents' decision-making process by identifying the links among the foods consumed, the people they eat with and the places they eat in. Results emphasized the importance of the home environment and the continuing influence of parents on adolescents' eating behaviour despite the greater independence related to this stage of the life cycle. A proportion of the sample was found to have recognized the need to change their eating behaviour in order to lose weight, because of their sporting commitments or to improve their health. Recommendations from this study include the need for the various agencies involved in the promotion of balanced dietary behaviour to attend to the link among adult, family and adolescent, and the need for greater progress in enabling consumers to translate the theory of nutritional education into practice.

The main criteria that consumers use during the decision‐making process when purchasing food have traditionally been a combination of prices, incomes, taste and social attitudes, with price being seen as the main determinant. However, in the past 10 years risk has become a ‘new’ criterion that can affect the consumer's decision whether or not to purchase a particular food item. The effect of the perception of risk has been observed during the numerous food scares in the last decade and in trends for the demand for foods that connote a health image. This research, carried out in Northern Ireland, looked at how consumers quantified and managed risk. The research involved 202 primary food consumers and identified the factors that were perceived to be important from both a societal and a personal perspective. Using principal component analysis techniques, societal food risks were seen as either processing or dietary, and personal food risks were seen as either extrinsic or intrinsic. Further investigation into the attributes of the personal risk using the same techniques revealed a three‐factor solution described as fear, involvement and newness. Although these factors cannot be used as predictors of the risk associated with a particular food, they help to describe and explain how the risk may be managed. The relationship between two of the factors, involvement and fear, provide a framework for understanding the way consumers manage their perception of the risk, particularly of high‐risk items. Consumer and scientific knowledge of the risk in question, and the degree of control over the risk were seen as important in the management of the risk in question. The conceptualization of the mechanism by which risks are processed and acted upon provides information regarding risk management and communication strategies that should be employed by educators, food retailers and government policy makers.