Institute of vocational education and work studies

... Consumer Non-Profit Organisation Page 4. Nina Langen et al. / Int. J. Food System Dynamics 4 (2010) 366-381 ... With such campaigns firms enable not only consumers but also other stakeholders to identify themselves with the corporation and its brands (Roy and Graeff, 2003). ...

... Consumer Non-Profit Organisation Page 4. Nina Langen et al. / Int. J. Food System Dynamics 4 (2010) 366-381 ... With such campaigns firms enable not only consumers but also other stakeholders to identify themselves with the corporation and its brands (Roy and Graeff, 2003). ...

Country of Origin (COO) labeling has been shown in several studies to be an important extrinsic cue for consumers in their quality evaluation of food products such as olive oil. COO has not been discussed in the context of pepper; a spice which’s quality is highly dependant on its heritage. This is the first study that combines face-to-face interviews regarding

Consumers associate with the quality of food its freshness (97%) and taste (93%) (e.g. GFK 2000). As the extrinsic cue country of origin serves as an indicator for the intrinsic cue taste it works as quality indicator (PETZOLDT ET AL. 2007; KROEBER-RIEL 2003). Indeed several studies reveal that country of origin labeling (COOL) plays an important role in consumers’ quality evaluation of food products (e.g. VAN ITTERSUM ET AL. 2001; HONG AND WYER 1989; ELLIOTT AND CAMERON 1994). Most studies investigating consumers’ preferences and willingness to pay for COOL focus on meat (e.g. VERBEKE AND WARD 2006; LOUREIRO AND MCCLUSKY 2000), olive oil (e.g. SANDALIDOU ET AL. 2002) or wine (e.g. SKURAS AND VAKROU 2002). Spices such as pepper have not been researched yet. Nevertheless, pepper for instance seems very interesting to analyze as we can note a shift from pepper being a low-involvement commodity to becoming a lifestyle product. This holds especially for consumers of organic products and for gourmets (KAUSCH 2008; NATUR AND KOSMOS 2007). For example freshly grounded pepper experiences an increasing culinary demand (DEAK 2004). Pepper experts state that pepper should be differentiated with respect to country and region of origin, as it is already common for wine, tea and coffee, because origin has a strong effect on peppers aroma (NATUR AND KOSMOS 2007; MCFADDEN 2008). Research reveals knowledge is a crucial factor for the use of country of origin labels as purchase criterion (e.g. SCHÄFER 1997; VAN ITTERSUM ET AL. 2001). We can suspect that conscious consumers know about a products’ diversity, e.g. taste variety as a result of its country of origin. Therefore it can be assumed that consumers’ knowledge and taste perception is of relevance for the success of country of origin labeling. Against this background, we carried out a standardized survey (n=100) in a organic grocery store in Bonn, Germany in August 2009 to investigate whether consumers expect taste differences with respect to pepper, olive oil, wine, rice and tea and if so, whether they assume these differences to be a result of country of origin. The word association test is used to gain insights into what comes to consumers mind when being asked about pepper. Based on these results we assess the relevance of country of origin (COO) in the case of pepper. In addition, we analyze consumers’ awareness and expertise with respect to the diversity of pepper as a result of country of origin and region. Finally, a blind tasting of black pepper of different origins and production methods (organic versus conventional) is conducted to assess whether consumers are able to identify aroma differences between the different varieties. The results show that consumers’ awareness of taste differences regarding product varieties differentiated by countries/locations depends on the familiarity with the considered product. For all products analysed, the correlation between COO and taste is positive (above 0.5) and highly significant at the 0.01 level. In the case of wine 82 % of the respondents expect taste differences due to the COO with 61 % indicating a preference for a specific country in their purchase decision. The preferred wine countries are Germany (34 %) and France (18 %). Also with respect to olive oil the majority of respondents (79 %) assume taste differences due to the COO and 66 % reveal a preference for a specific country (e.g. 52 % for Italy; 33 % for Greek). In the case of pepper only 44 % of the survey participants expect taste differences in view of country of origin. 16 % indicate a preference for a specific origin of which India is most often mentioned (56 %), followed by China, however with a considerable smaller relevance (13 %). The low relevance of the COO in the case of pepper might be a result of the fact that only organic brands label the producing country. Additionally advertisement for spices focusing on country of origin is in general rare. Therefore it is not surprising that the connection between COO and taste is less made for pepper compared to wine and olive oil which are, in contrast to pepper, considered as high involvement products and are often discussed in the context of country of origin. For these products advertisement focuses on and highlights this attribute (Becker 2000). Therefore we can assume that consumers’ knowledge and awareness of the producing country is more skilled and present for wine and olive oil. Based on these results, we conclude that COO serves as an indicator for taste for the products under investigation. On the basis of a word association test, the relevance of the attribute ‘country of origin’ is analysed in comparison to other product characteristics for pepper. The test reveals that country of origin (17 times mentioned) is only one of many relevant product attributes consumers associate with pepper. Most frequently mentioned are varietal diversity (64 times) and spiciness (54 times). Thus, the results of ...

2003. Strade e politica. Storia della viabilità in provincia di Torino [Roads and politics. History of the road system in the Turin province], Alessandria, Edizioni dell’Orso, pp. 194, ISBN 9788876947247

This book investigates the automobile’s role in shaping city spaces and developing new forms of social and spatial relationships in the Italian context. The volume was the outcome of the author’s PhD thesis defended at the Turin Polytechnic in Architectural and Housing History.
After a description of the Turin area transport policies in the 18th and 19th centuries, the book looks at how the increasing use of automobiles defined a new shape for the city, an urban spread no longer linked to the tram or train system. The car culture development and its need for more public space for car traffic transformed the city into a battlefield, fighting other and “older” transport means like trams. This shift was also political, with a new set of relationships between the central government and the local bodies. It carried with it new forms of public and private initiatives and an increasing centralisation of political decisions.

2007. Storia delle prime autostrade italiane (1922-1943). Modernizzazione, affari e propaganda [History of the First Italian Motorways. Modernisation, Business and Propaganda], Torino, Trauben, pp. 266, ISBN 9788889909324

The history of Italian motorways begins with the project of the Milan-Lakes in 1922, when the theme of car transport became popular, and entered abruptly onto the country’s political agenda. The success of the initiative was enormous, and not only within the national context; during the following years, from every part of the world, thousands of technicians, public administrators and journalists visited the Italian motorways, celebrating the “inventor”, Milanese businessman Piero Puricelli.
The development of motoring (seen as an instrument of national modernization), the related interests of construction businesses, and the exigencies of propaganda guaranteed the success of some motorway initiatives, until the crisis of 1929 made the contradiction between the costs and benefits of the realized projects evident, causing the failure of the entire sector.
After a fleeting attempt at the beginning of the thirties to construct a European motorway network, the Italian model was followed, with better resources and a higher level of determination, in Hitler’s Germany, with his Reichsautobahnen outclassing the modest sum of the disorganized Italian network. It was only after the Second World War, in a completely different political and social context that the construction of an Italian motorway system was once again undertaken, often in keeping with prewar projects and ideas.

2006. Inventare gli spostamenti. Storia e immagini dell’autostrada Torino-Savona / Inventing Movement. History and Images of the A6 Motorway, Torino-London-Venezia-New York, Umberto Allemandi & C., (with M. Bonino), pp. 188, ISBN 9788842213666
With an Introduction by Antoine Picon

One of the first motorways to be begun in Italy (1956), much desired by Fiat, the construction of the Torino-Savona motorway was finally concluded in 2001, by which date the national network had been fully developed. This extremely long construction time today offers us, with its 484 diverse structures (including a loop that turns back on itself, unique in Europe) a sort of infrastructure archaeology, in which rapidly changing models and landscape ideas can be compared. The history of the Torino-Savona motorway is the history of the Italian motorways and the economic boom after the war. It gave people living on the euphoria of mass motoring a new dimension of space and time. Hundreds of thousands of tourists poured down to the Ligurian beaches with their cars, discovering the idea of holidays and individual movement: the A6 was much more than infrastructure; it became a metaphor for the summer for large sectors of the population. Such a rich and complex theme is presented in an introduction by Antoine Picon.
The book is accompanied by a photographic survey, curated by Francesca Comisso and Nicoletta Leonardi. In it, four well-known Italian photographers, Giorgio Barrera, Francesco Gnot, Guido Guidi and Ciro Frank Schiappa, have portrayed the landscapes and human landscapes of the motorway, proffering unexpected images of the countryside travelled.

This article analyses the efforts European road and traffic engineers to devise technological and organizational solutions to traffic – and thus some social – problems in the inter-war period. I develop this issue by analysing how French and Italian transport experts visited the USA “en masse” attending PIARC conference held in 1930 in Washington DC, and thus focusing on technologic transfers. Among its outcomes there was a more coherent and collective vision of land transport: European experts had evidently been impressed by the development of road infrastructures and mobility management in the USA, and were fascinated by the possibility of using traffic planning as a tool to engineer society. This is even more remarkable because, at that time, European culture was largely debating the issue of decadence, while many policy-makers were worried about falling behind the USA in traffic management. Additionally, experts and technicians often saw themselves as being politically “neutral”, and therefore in the best position to develop more incisive and productive actions to achieve the goals of a better (and more proficient) society. However, although European experts claimed how different and astonishing was North American’s mass motorization and traffic engineering development, mass motorization was conceived by European experts as a model replicable also in a different context than in a democratic society with a corporate capitalism economy.