This study investigated the effect of offering eco-friendly fashion items on consumers’ perceived image of stores and their intention to purchase food in a hybrid cafe setting. The data were collected using an online survey of 465 adults aged 20 to 49 years. In order to compare ‘a general cafe’ where only food is sold and ‘a hybrid cafe’ which offers eco-friendly fashion items as well as food, we developed two store types (general×hybrid) with two store designs (modern×eco-friendly) as stimuli, resulting in four scenarios. The results indicated that offering eco-friendly fashion items at a cafe did not significantly affect consumers’ perceived eco-friendly image of the store. Further, this negatively affected consumers’ perceived healthy and tasty images of the store and intention to purchase food. Such negative effects on the healthy and tasty images of the store increased in the store with a modern design. In conclusion, offering eco-friendly fashion items at cafes may not contribute to enhancing the stores’ images or sales.

This study examined the historical changes of and dietitians’ needs for the Life Cycle-based Dietary Guidelines for Koreans. Content analysis of relevant documents, a survey of 307 dietitians, and in-depth interviews with eight dietitians were conducted. The dietary guidelines published between 2003 and 2004 included one set of common guidelines and several sets of dietary action guides corresponding to six target groups: pregnant and lactating women, infants and toddlers, children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly. The guidelines were revised between 2008 and 2011 and consisted of six sets of guidelines for the target groups without common guidelines. The dietitians considered five or six as appropriate numbers of guidelines for each group. Needs for separate guidelines for women of child-bearing age and male workers were reported. The dietitians preferred one set of common guidelines with specific action guides for each target group and wanted easier and more specific messages to be included in the new guidelines. It is suggested that the Life Cycle-based Dietary Guidelines for Koreans should be revised to reflect such dietitians’ needs.

Food environment has been going through significant changes with the introduction of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). This study was conducted to investigate the current development status of ICT related to food delivery service by analyzing the relevant registered patents according to consumer buying process. Patents registered between 2002 and 2016 were searched with ‘food’ and ‘delivery’ as main keywords through Korea Intellectual Property Rights Information Service (www.kipris.or.kr). The search resulted in 624 patents among which 219 patents were related to food delivery service; 108 patents based on ICT were selected and analyzed. The patents were examined by applicant and year. The patents were classified into the six steps of consumer buying process: ‘need recognition’, ‘information search’, ‘evaluation’, ‘choice’, ‘purchase’, and ‘postpurchase evaluation’. Patents belonging to more than one step were coded to all the corresponding steps. The patents were registered mainly by domestic companies (50.9%) and individuals (35.2%), having shown dramatic increase of registration since 2012. Over 2/3 (67.6%) of the patents were related to the ‘purchase’ step. About 32% were associated with the 'information search' step. Approximately 18% of the patents were relevant to the 'evaluation' and 'choice’ steps, respectively. The numbers of patents related to the 'postpurchase evaluation (13.9%)’ and 'need recognition (12.0%)' steps were relatively low. The current ICTs related to food delivery service in Korea were largely associated with service providers' profit generation rather than consumers' benefit. There is still much room for technology development that could contribute to increasing consumers' benefit.