Food consumption sits at the intersection of some of the most pressing societal challenges facing consumers, policymakers and industry, including diet-related ill health, environmental sustainability, inequality and the transformation of food systems. Marketing has an important role to play in addressing these challenges because consumer choices are shaped not only by individual preferences, but also by information, pricing, behavioural interventions, marketplace structures, social relationships and cultural meanings.
Over the past decade, substantial research has examined approaches to encouraging healthier and more sustainable consumption, including food labelling and information disclosure, nudges and behavioural interventions, pricing and policy mechanisms, product reformulation, and sustainability communication. However, these research streams have often developed separately across consumer behaviour, public health, economics, sustainability and consumer culture. Consequently, important questions remain about how different interventions work together, the conditions under which they succeed or fail, their scalability and long-term effects, and the potential trade-offs and unintended consequences they create.
This Special Issue, “Healthy Food and Sustainable Consumption: What Do We Know and Where to Next?”, seeks to bring these perspectives together and develop a more integrated and forward-looking understanding of how marketing can contribute to healthier and more sustainable food systems. It moves beyond a focus on isolated interventions and individual decision-making to consider the wider systems in which consumption occurs, including families and social networks, cultural practices, firms, policymakers, value chains and institutional structures.
We welcome empirical and conceptual research, reviews, meta-analyses and Impact Articles addressing topics such as intervention effectiveness and boundary conditions, government policy, health and sustainability labelling, product reformulation, consumer resistance and adaptation, equity and access, family and intergenerational influences, consumer culture, and structural barriers to food-system transformation. Particular emphasis is placed on interdisciplinary and impact-oriented scholarship that connects theoretical advancement with meaningful implications for policy, industry, communities and societal wellbeing.
List of topic areas
- Effectiveness and boundary conditions of nudges and behavioural interventions targeting healthy and sustainable food consumption.
- Government policies and regulatory interventions designed to influence food choices and consumption practices.
- Food labelling and information disclosure, including nutrition, health and sustainability labelling.
- Product reformulation and industry responses to health, sustainability and policy initiatives.
- Trade-offs between health and environmental sustainability outcomes in consumer decision-making and food systems.
- Equity, access and unintended consequences of interventions promoting healthier and more sustainable consumption.
- Consumer resistance, adaptation and long-term behaviour change in response to food-related interventions.
- Consumer socialisation, family influence and intergenerational transmission of healthy and sustainable food practices.
- Food consumption within households, communities and social networks, including the social context of food practices.
- Food value chains, market systems and structural barriers to healthier and more sustainable consumption transitions.
- Consumer culture, identity and food-related practices associated with health, sustainability and wellbeing.
- Marketplace ideologies, food discourses and the cultural politics of health and sustainability.
Submissions information
Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available at: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ejm
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see: https://www.emerald.com/journals/author-guidance/1627/emerald-publishing-author-guidelines
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to “Please select the issue you are submitting to”.
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.
journal Information: Scopus Journal Q1, H-index 173
Key deadlines
Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 28/02/2027
Closing date for manuscripts submission: 30/04/2027
For more details refer here
