The Development of the Innovation Status and Impact of Smart Packaging on Slovak Consumers

Abstract

The decision about packaging belongs to the most substantial product characteristics. It has impact on the quality of food as well as shopping preferences of consumers. Because the significance of packaging keeps increasing, companies need to take a more innovative approach to packaging policy in the context of ecological innovations. The food packaging industry is largely subject to change from passive to innovative packaging resulting in making the smart packaging. The producing companies, processors of food, logistic operators as well as consumers constantly ask for more innovative packaging (smart packaging) to make products that fulfil standards in the area of quality, safety or identification of products within the logistic chain. The research of understanding and attitudes towards smart packaging as well as evaluation of its utility and requirements was used by the Kano model concept. The aim of the paper is to determine the development of innovation status and the impact of smart packaging on consumers in different age categories in Slovakia. The results show the positive impact of smart packaging on Slovak customers. Innovation status of smart packaging among Slovak customers in determined age categories has increased during the monitored period and younger respondents evaluate the smart packaging as an added value of the product. This added value of smart packaging supports the smart logistics to make the whole logistic chain more effective to develop a decentralized database storing the constantly increasing number of various records, such as product movement or its quality.

A Systematic Review of Consumer Perceptions of Smart Packaging Technologies for Food

“…For the epistemic value provided by intelligent packaging the articles were more in agreement in that younger consumers had a higher preference for such benefits (Pennanen et al, 2015;Loučanová et al, 2016Loučanová et al, , 2017Loučanová et al, , 2019aO'Callaghan and Kerry, 2016). It was suggested that younger consumers had less life experience and that assistance with decision making, the provision of product information and a warning about potential problems they may not otherwise have identified was more helpful for them (Loučanová et al, 2017).…”

“…Another cluster of articles [from the same research group, (Loučanová et al, 2016(Loučanová et al, , 2017(Loučanová et al, , 2018(Loučanová et al, , 2019a] use the Kano model to link prioritization of packaging functions with preference for smart packaging technologies. Remaining articles derived a value driven model (Lindqvist et al, 2012), investigated the relationship between food neophobia and acceptance of packaging nanotechnology (Matin et al, 2012), one used the theory of planned behavior to compare traceable packaging with standard packaging for meat products (Spence et al, 2018) and two utilized the random utility theory (Erdem, 2015;Zhou and Hu, 2018).…”

“…The most significant moderating variable identified in the studies was a lack of familiarity or lack of knowledge about active and intelligent packaging or nano-packaging (Stampfli et al, 2010;Greehy et al, 2011;López-Vázquez et al, 2012;Matin et al, 2012;Schnettler et al, 2014;Aday and Yener, 2015;Erdem, 2015;Gupta et al, 2015;Pennanen et al, 2015;Barska and Wyrwa, 2016;O'Callaghan and Kerry, 2016;Loučanová et al, 2018Loučanová et al, , 2019aNosálová et al, 2018;Daoud and Trigui, FIGURE 4 | Locations of empirical data collection (some studies collected data in multiple countries). 2019).…”

“…The control variables accounted for and discussed in the studies all tended to be sociodemographic variables. They included; home/family situation-partners and/or dependents (Greehy et al, 2011;Lindqvist et al, 2012;Matin et al, 2012;Pennanen et al, 2015;Katare et al, 2016), income levels (Lindqvist et al, 2012;Matin et al, 2012;Aday and Yener, 2015;Barska and Wyrwa, 2016;Katare et al, 2016), location (Van Wezemael et al, 2011;Lindqvist et al, 2012;López-Vázquez et al, 2012;Matin et al, 2012;Schnettler et al, 2014;Aday and Yener, 2015;Pennanen et al, 2015;Barska and Wyrwa, 2016;O'Callaghan and Kerry, 2016;Spence et al, 2018), age (Vandermoere et al, 2011;Lindqvist et al, 2012;Matin et al, 2012;Schnettler et al, 2014;Pennanen et al, 2015;Katare et al, 2016;Loučanová et al, 2016Loučanová et al, , 2017Loučanová et al, , 2018Loučanová et al, , 2019aO'Callaghan and Kerry, 2016;Wilson et al, 2018;Henchion et al, 2019), gender (Vandermoere et al, 2011;Matin et al, 2012;Schnettler et al, 2014;Aday and Yener, 2015;…”

“…Schnettler et al (2014), Henchion et al (2019 and Zhou and Hu (2018) all found no significant differences in acceptance based on sociodemographic differences, a result that is in conflict with many of the other articles where differences were identified. Most studies (Vandermoere et al, 2011;Matin et al, 2012;Katare et al, 2016;Wilson et al, 2018;Loučanová et al, 2019a) that identified a relationship between age and acceptance, suggested that younger consumers were more supportive, and had a higher willingness to pay. In contrast Loučanová et al (2017) suggested that while younger consumers were more orientated toward intelligent packaging, older consumers were more accepting of active packaging technologies.…”