Abstract

Many consumers prefer to buy “perfect” produce (e.g., a shiny apple) while avoiding imperfect ones that may be dull in colour and/or odd in shape. In my thesis, I wanted to paint a portrait of this type of consumer. To do so, I looked at various demographic, psychographic and behavioural variables, and found that consumers avoid buying imperfect produce and have negative taste, health and effort perceptions. Further, this type of consumer does not connect the purchase of imperfect produce to food waste and/or environmental issues. Given the impact of food waste on environmental and societal well-being, I then examined a way to encourage consumers to purchase imperfect produce (and at more reasonable prices): more specifically, I tested whether “whimsical cuteness” might influence how much consumers are willing-to-pay for imperfect produce based on prior research showing that whimsicality results in greater usage, and consumption, of whimsical objects (Nenkov and Scott, 2014). I also tested whether this type of priming works through curiosity (Wang and Huang, 2018). Across two experiments, I found that when consumers were shown an advertisement for an oddly shaped lemon with (versus without) a characteristic related to whimsical cuteness (i.e., googly eyes), they were later willing-to-pay more for oddly shaped lemons. This effect remained even when I increased the time between purchase and consumption. The mediating role of curiosity, however, was unclear and should be re-considered in future research.