Daleen Magdalena Van der Merwe

North-West University | NWU · Consumer Sciences Group

Awareness and understanding of green consumer behaviour (GCB) in emerging economies can increase consumer participation in green initiatives, leading to better product and behavioural choices and protecting scarce resources. Therefore, consumers should actively change their daily habits, lifestyle, and behaviour choices. A transdisciplinary critica...

Purpose This study investigated the influence of marketing- and family-related factors on consumers' in-store usage of different types of food label information. Furthermore, the authors determined the mediating role of consumers' knowledge about healthy foods between these factors and their label consultation. Design/methodology/approach The auth...

Therefore, consumers need to be aware of health concerns associated with incorrectly used plastic food packaging. However, little is known about consumers’ knowledge and their plastics usage practices. This study assessed this knowledge and practices among young South African adult consumers. Our online survey of 293 participants focused on their o...

The myths surrounding coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines have prompted scientists to refocus their attention on vaccine hesitancy, which is fuelled by the spread of misinformation. The scientific investigation of behavioural concepts relating to vaccine hesitancy can be enhanced by the examination of behavioural concepts from the field of...

The aim of this study is to explore the contextual influences of packaging design and its cues on respondents’ preferences. Design/methodology/approach – To explore the contextuality of packaging cues, a multi-attribute valuation technique, conjoint analysis was used for two types of pharmaceutical products (painkiller and sore throat medicine) acr...

In South Africa, women make up 45% of the employed population; yet they still carry most of their household's responsibilities. Although women have served as a target group in research-as household gatekeepers in terms of purchases, food preparation and health-scholarly studies of informed decision-making among working women in particular are limit...

Low-literate consumers experience various challenges in the marketplace. This quantitative study focused on low-literate female consumers' use of clothing labels amidst personal and product-related challenges in the marketplace. An interviewer-administered questionnaire was employed among black African female consumers (n = 450) with literacy level...

This study aimed to describe consumers’ retrospective satisfaction with food labels within the expectancy (dis)confirmation paradigm and to investigate the likelihood of food labels influencing consumers’ product choices. A quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional survey approach was followed to explore and describe consumers’ satisfaction with a...

Theoretically, private labels should benefit lower income consumers by saving them money. South Africa is an emerging country with high unemployment rates where consumers could benefit from purchasing value for money private labels. Although the market share of private labels has risen in this country, it has not achieved the success of global coun...

ABSTRACT: Theoretically, private labels should benefit lower income consumers by saving them money. South Africa is an emerging country with high unemployment rates where consumers could benefit from purchasing value for money private labels. Although the market share of private labels has risen in this country, it has not achieved the success of g...

Purpose – The globally recognised link between diet and health needs to be communicated to consumers to facilitate healthy food choices. Thus, this paper aims to determine South African (SA) metropolitan consumers' opinions and beliefs about the food-health link, as well as their opinions and use of health information on food labels. Design/method...

Food packaging defines a product's uniqueness and strengthens consumers' relationship with a brand, in this way offering functional and experiential benefits. Although cold chain food is predicted to become even more important to consumers, consumers' experiences of the packaging of these products have been neglected in the literature. Thus, this e...

Textile label information facilitates consumers' pre- and post-purchase decisions. Because consumers' knowledge regarding this information is relatively unexplored in a South African context, it was the focus of this exploratory descriptive study. A face-to-face survey was employed among respondents (n = 120) recruited at selected public locations...

Food packaging defines a product's uniqueness and strengthens consumers' relationship with a brand, in this way offering functional and experiential benefits. Although cold chain food is predicted to become even more important to consumers, consumers' experiences of the packaging of these products have been neglected in the literature. Thus, this e...

This study aimed to investigate consumers' expectations of furniture labels during the pre‐purchase information search, in order to propose furniture labels that would serve as a more relevant source of external information during the consumer decision‐making process. A mixed‐method approach using a two‐phase exploratory design was followed. The qu...

Objective: To determine the ability of consumers to: locate and manipulate food label information; assess the accuracy of nutrient content claims and which health/nutrient claims are allowed; and identify symbols on food labels. Associations pertaining to use and knowledge regarding food label information were also determined for consumers from di...

Consumers’ choice of private brands reflects distinct differences in terms of product categories, and indications are that demographic and psychographic factors are also influential in terms of the sales of private vs. national brand foods. This study investigated the relationship between selected demographic and psychographic variables and consume...

The study was conducted to obtain background information on consumers' beliefs on Indigenous and Traditional Foods (ITF) and to assess consumers' acceptance of, preference for and intended consumption of products made with cowpea leaves. Four focus groups investigated consumers' beliefs on ITF. Thematic analysis identified three major themes in rel...

Studies linking diet and health and consumers' demand for health information, has led to an increasing awareness of the role of nutrition in health and disease. Interest in soy foods and an awareness of its health benefits has also increased. The objective was to assess South African (SA) consumers' opinions and beliefs regarding the health benefit...

Consumers form perceptions of various food products through their comprehension of the visual stimuli on food packaging that attract their attention. These perceptions directly affect their purchasing decision at the point of purchase, which emphasizes the importance of attention-capturing packaging attributes. However, little research is available...

This article provides a review of ethical food labelling from a consumer perspective and makes recommendations to the food industry and regulators regarding ethical food labelling in order to satisfy consumers’ food-labelling needs. Various studies have found that many consumers have negative perceptions regarding food labelling. However, research...

Consumers' lifestyle changes and striving towards better time management have resulted in the greater choice they are offered with regard to store formats. Therefore, this study was undertaken to identify the factors that influence consumers in their patronage of a particular store format and to categorize department and specialist food store consu...

Food label information theoretically facilitates consumer decision-making and food choice, but the extent to which consumers actually use this information during decision-making is a subject of considerable debate. Therefore, this study focused on the importance of label information in student consumers' decision-making process when exposed to limi...

Abstract New labelling legislation in South Africa is expected to help consumers sustain a healthy lifestyle through the food choices they make. This study was undertaken to explore a sample of South African consumers' reasons for reading labels and the influence of food labels on their purchasing behaviour. The study was conducted using focus grou...

Die kleinhandelindustrie wat toegespits is op die daarstelling van basiese lewensmiddele en kruideniersware het 'n betekenisvolle invloed op die ontwikkellende Suid-Afrikaanse ekonomie. Talle aspekte wat verbruikersbesluitneming en –gedrag in hierdie kleinhandelomgewing beïnvloed is reeds oor die afgelope aantal jare ondersoek. 'n Aspek wat egter t...

Despite the growing interest of South African consumers regarding home ware, insufficient research is available regarding their decision making of this product category. The objectives of this exploratory study were to evaluate consumers' decision-making process regarding home ware, and to suggest consumer profiles of the home ware based on the dec...

The study aimed to validate canonical variate analysis (OVA) model equations for the grouping of small white beans according to canning quality by testing them on four cultivar samples of known canning quality (2000/01 season), and 24 breeding samples that were not included in the development of the model, from three localities (2002/03 season). Th...

A laboratory-scale canning and evaluation method was employed to evaluate the canning quality of small white beans over cultivars, localities and seasons. Four small white bean cultivars, representing 15 localities from the 2001/02 season and six cultivars representing 17 localities from the 2002/03 season (n = 162 samples) were evaluated by determ...

This exploratory investigation conducted within the context of South African grocery retail outlets describes the informational value of shelf-edge signage in urban consumers’ decision-making processes. The findings of this qualitative study emphasize the role of such in-store signage in providing price-, product- and retail-related information in...

This paper presents a systems perspective on fashion consumers’ walking patterns and in-store behaviour, as influenced by the fashion store layout and visual merchandising subsystems. A qualitative approach through observations and unstructured interviews revealed the influence of consumer walking patterns and store subsystems on purchasing behavio...

Canning and evaluation procedures should be standardised to ensure that beans selected, based on canning quality, meet the requirements set by the market and processors. For the purpose of evaluating the canning qualities of small white beans in tomato sauce, three small-scale canning techniques were evaluated, one of which was found to deliver a p...

The use of laboratory canning techniques to predict the commercial canning quality of dry beans is widely accepted in bean breeding. The validation of laboratory canning procedures is determined by its relationship with commercial practices. Laboratory evaluation of the canning quality of industrially canned beans obtained from retailers stressed t...

Applying near‐infrared (NIR) techniques to intact sunflower seeds to determine the oil content had previously been indicated to be a useful tool in the screening of samples prior to chemical analysis, but it could not replace analysis with wet chemistry. This study was conducted to develop improved oil and protein calibration models for sunflower s...

Although roller milling has been successfully applied to produce sorghum meal, the South African sorghum milling industry mostly uses abrasive decortication milling. The first objective of this study was to develop a laboratory scale roller milling technique for a scaled-down roller mil and determine the milling performance of sorghum cultivars, us...

Malting quality of grain samples of commercially available malting class sorghum cultivars was determined over five seasons and three localities for each season. The number of cultivars included in the National Sorghum Cultivar Trials has declined in recent years. The aim of the study was to determine the malting status of current South African sor...

A study was conducted to determine the effect of leaf feeding by the aphid, Melanaphis sacchari, on grain quality of sorghum. A field trial was planted with two sub-blocks. Each sub-block was planted with ten similar sorghum hybrids. One sub-block was protected from aphid infestation by means of insecticide application while the other was allowed t...

During two seasons, the lightness (L) of flour of a number of sorghum varieties were evaluated with the aid of a Hunter Lab Colourquest 45/0 following various dehulling treatments. The varieties included those preselected for high L-values, those obtained from rural farmers and high tannin varieties. On average, the preselected group of varieties i...