Perceived healthiness of food is generally regarded as a positive attribute in food choices as it positively impacts consumers’ preferences. The current research demonstrates that in contexts where there is a time delay between a food’s production and its consumption (referred to as “about-to-expire” food), strong perceptions of a food’s healthiness can be detrimental. This is because consumers hold a lay theory that healthy food expires more quickly. In eight studies ( N = 3,552), we find that merely portraying food as healthy increases the perception that it expires quickly and that this effect attenuates when consumers hold the lay theory weakly or have a high level of knowledge about food expiration. Importantly, this lay theory leads consumers to avoid consuming healthy (vs. non-healthy) about-to-expire food, resulting in increased disposal intentions and decreased preferences. In designing sales promotions for about-to-expire food, managers should consider the healthiness of food products, as consumers prefer different types of sales promotions and require different magnitudes of price discounts for healthy (vs. non-healthy) about-to-expire food. Finally, adding an expiration date label that provides unambiguous guidance (i.e., “consume by”) can effectively mitigate the detrimental effect of perceived healthiness on the consumption for about-to-expire food.

中文翻译：

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快递：丢弃还是食用？感知健康对即将过期食品消费决策的影响


食物的健康感通常被视为食物选择的积极因素，因为它对消费者的喜好有正面影响。目前的研究表明，在食品生产和消费之间存在时间延迟的情况下（称为“即将过期”的食品），对食品健康状况的强烈感知可能是有害的。这是因为消费者持有一种外行理论，认为健康食品过期得更快。在八项研究 （ N = 3,552） 中，我们发现仅仅将食物描绘成健康的食物会增加它很快就会过期的感觉，并且当消费者对外行理论持薄弱或对食物过期的了解水平较高时，这种影响会减弱。重要的是，这种外行理论导致消费者避免食用健康（相对于不健康）即将过期的食品，从而导致丢弃意愿增加和偏好降低。在为即将过期的食品设计促销活动时，管理者应考虑食品的健康性，因为消费者更喜欢不同类型的促销活动，并且对健康（与非健康）即将过期的食品要求不同程度的价格折扣。最后，添加提供明确指导的保质期标签（即“食用截止日期”）可以有效减轻感知健康对即将过期食品消费的不利影响。