The quality of preparations offered in the workplace can vary according to the different segments of food services and may impact the health of the workers. This study aimed to qualitatively assess the food preparation offered to workers in from different food services. A total of 384 preparations were offered to workers in Curitiba City, Brazil. The preparations from three different segments of food services were evaluated: commercial (pilot study), non-commercial, and outsourced, selected for convenience. To identify the preparations, the nutritionist was interviewed, and the production process was monitored. The Score for Qualitative Assessment of Preparations (EAQP) was applied to evaluate the preparations, and they were classified according to their quality: high, intermediate, low, and very low quality. The chi-square and Kruskal-Wallis tests with post-hoc Least Significant Difference (LSD) Test were used. Most of the preparations were of high quality (72.9%), using mainly the unprocessed or minimally processed ingredients. The preparations offered by the non-commercial food service provider had a better mean quality score when compared to other food services (p < 0.01). This study outcome is essential to help food service professionals to decide and choose the ingredients used in the preparations.

In China, the integration of livestreaming into restaurant marketing has transitioned from mere entertainment to a vital business tool. This study examines the influence of social sharing value (SSV) on customer attitudes and behavioral intentions within the context of restaurant livestreams, applying the stimulus-organism-behavior-consequences (SOBC) model. Analyzing data from 1139 livestream viewers using partial least squares-path modeling (PLS-PM), the results reveal that SSV significantly enhances viewers\' trust, satisfaction, word of mouth (WOM), and behavioral intentions. Trust was shown to elevate satisfaction, which, in turn, positively impacts WOM and purchase intentions. Among the SSV\'s components, brand intimacy emerged as highly influential. Notably, behavioral intention was found to significantly influence WOM activities, underscoring the critical role of proactive customer behaviors in promoting the brand. This study extends social exchange theory by quantifying relationship quality and adapting it to digital consumer interactions in the restaurant industry. The findings highlight the importance of cultivating SSV to bolster customer trust and satisfaction, thereby enhancing loyalty and advocacy. Effective engagement through livestreaming can amplify brand intimacy, establishing it as an indispensable strategy for maintaining competitiveness in the restaurant sector.

UNASSIGNED: An outbreak of Salmonella Infantis was associated with the consumption of shredded pork products at multiple restaurants in Ontario between July 2021 and October 2021. The outbreak involved 36 case-patients from six public health units. The implicated shredded pork products were obtained from an unlicensed source. This is the largest reported outbreak of Salmonella Infantis linked to restaurant food exposures in Ontario, with complexities related to the investigation of unlicensed foods. This article aims to describe the epidemiological, food safety and laboratory investigations that led to the identification and removal of the source of the outbreak from implicated restaurants, including the challenges encountered while investigating an outbreak related to an unlicensed source of food.
UNASSIGNED: Epidemiological and laboratory analyses were conducted to identify the source of the outbreak. Food safety investigations were conducted to ascertain the origin and distribution of the implicated food.
UNASSIGNED: Whole-genome sequencing identified the outbreak strain from the isolates of 36 case-patients across six public health units in Ontario. Seven case-patients (19%) were hospitalized. No deaths were reported. The outbreak was linked to shredded pork products (i.e., rinds or skins) that were distributed by an unlicensed meat processor and consumed at various restaurants that served Southeast Asian fusion cuisine concentrated in the Greater Toronto Area. The product was removed from implicated restaurants.
UNASSIGNED: Historically, foods from unlicensed sources have been implicated in multiple large outbreaks and continue to be of significant public health risk. The outbreak investigation emphasized the threat of food from unlicensed sources to the public\'s health and the importance of additional public health interventions to prevent outbreaks linked to unlicensed sources.

UNASSIGNED: Public acceptability of policies aiming to improve the healthfulness of the restaurant food environment is key to their successful implementation. Yet, the acceptability of these policies remains ambiguous, especially across diverse population groups. This study aims to examine associations between sociodemographic characteristics and acceptability levels of three restaurant food environment policies of varying degrees of intrusiveness across 17 urban Canadian jurisdictions.
UNASSIGNED: Data was extracted from the THEPA survey, one of the largest and most jurisdictionally comprehensive surveys on intervention acceptability (N = 27,162). To account for potential jurisdictional differences in acceptability, for each policy, multilevel logistic regression models were developed.
UNASSIGNED: Results indicated that, on average, those in complete agreement with the implementation of the targeted policies represented 20.3%-26.9% of participants, depending on the policy. Acceptability varied according to policy intrusiveness, jurisdiction, and participants\' sociodemographic characteristics. Women, individuals with household incomes of <$40,000/year, immigrants from a high-income country other than Canada, and Indigenous peoples were more likely to express complete agreement with all policies, versus men, participants with household incomes of $40,000-$79,999/year, Canadian-born individuals, and non-Indigenous individuals. A lower likelihood of expressing complete agreement with all policies was observed for those with a $80,000-$119,999/year household income, versus those with a $40,000-$79,999/year household income. For selected policies and models, other sociodemographic characteristics (i.e., age, education, and being born in a low-or middle-income country) predicted acceptability. The examined sociodemographic characteristics did not explain jurisdictional differences in acceptability.
UNASSIGNED: Understanding jurisdictional differences in acceptability merits further research. Policy implications involve engaging diverse sociodemographic groups in conversations about acceptable ways in which their restaurant food environment could be rendered more healthful.

This study takes Shanghai\'s restaurants as a case study of urban soft infrastructure, employing big data sets from third-party website platforms for multi-source data fusion, to deeply analyze the impact of urban land expansion and population dynamics on the availability, affordability, acceptability, and accessibility of restaurants. The case study reveals that, despite the Shanghai municipal authorities\' focus on mitigating overcrowding in the central urban areas, soft infrastructure such as restaurants in new urban districts remains at a relative disadvantage. The decentralization of soft infrastructure to peripheral urban areas has not met policy expectations, presenting a spatial imbalance characterized by greater provision in the main urban areas than in new urban districts, and higher in Puxi than in Pudong. The single-threshold model uncovers that the positive impact of land urbanization and population dynamics on restaurant convenience undergoes a transformation after reaching a certain critical point, where the linear relationship and synchronous growth shift. By controlling the development area of construction land and the population density within regions, a dynamic combination of availability, affordability, acceptability, and accessibility of restaurants can be achieved. This forms a spatio-temporal management strategy that integrates land, population, and comfort facilities, potentially alleviating the inequity of comfort facilities in Shanghai and the central urban areas\' siphoning effect.

Striving towards eco-efficiency means creating more value while generating a product or service with a reduced environmental impact. This quest makes it possible to link objectives associated with both the environmental and the economic pillars of sustainable development. Eco-efficiency could therefore be an interesting tool to evaluate the impacts of food waste (FW) and the potential of various food waste reduction strategies (FWRSs). However, the use of eco-efficiency to assess the interest in implementing FWRSs has never been explored in the foodservice sector. This work firstly aims to carry out an in-depth analysis of the costs of the FW generation of an independent restaurant. Secondly, based on these costs data and on some previously documented environmental impact data with a life cycle assessment according to ISO 14045:2012, this work also aims to model and evaluate the performance of FWRSs from a perspective of improving a restaurant eco-efficiency. The impact of each FWRS on the eco-efficiency of the restaurant under study was measured by modeling their economic and environmental net benefits over three implementation periods (one week, one month and six months) and under scenarios of strong and weak adherence. The study identified the most eco-efficient FWRSs to be implemented to reduce FW in the studied restaurant. In addition, key factors affecting eco-efficiency were raised, namely the period following the implementation of FWRSs, the FW reduction rate between FWRSs affecting the same type of FW, the specificity of the FWRSs and their ability to limit the waste of vegetables, meat, sea products and food requiring significant processing time by the cooks. Thus, these elements will guide foodservice managers in adopting FWRSs aimed at reducing FW generated in their restaurant and at improving its eco-efficiency. In addition, this work proposes a new methodology intended for the scientific community to identify FWRSs that have a strong impact on a restaurant eco-efficiency.

The purpose of this study is to examine the psychosocial determinants of baby boomers\'-born between 1946 and 1964- intention to choose a menu item featuring plant-based meat alternatives (PBMA) when dining out. The specific objectives are as follows: 1) to identify the baby boomer generation\'s health-related perceptions about PBMA, and 2) to examine the factors that influence baby boomers\' intention to choose a dish featuring PBMA at a restaurant. A total of 174 responses obtained using the Qualtrics panel were analyzed with content analysis and partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings identified various underlying perceptions of baby boomers toward PBMA, such as perceived health outcomes, perceived availability, and willingness to purchase. Furthermore, subjective norm, cues to action, and self-identity were found to be significant predictors of the intention to choose a menu item featuring PBMA when dining out. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The tourism and hospitality industry, particularly the restaurant business, has been greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. To comprehend customer behavior and preferences during this unprecedented time, it is crucial to analyze online restaurant customer reviews. Thus, this study utilized the valence aware dictionary for sentiment reasoning (VADER) model to examine TripAdvisor reviews of restaurants in Pattaya City, Chon Buri, Thailand, covering the period 2017-2022, which encompasses both pre-pandemic and pandemic years. The findings reveal a significant decrease in the number of reviews and a notable increase in negative sentiments during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to normal circumstances. We noticed two concern areas, i.e., service and staff, and food and taste, that should be addressed urgently. The findings of this study offer valuable insights into customer behavior and requirements, thereby empowering restaurant businesses to enhance service quality, satisfy customer requirements, and strategically plan for a post-COVID-19 future.

Crowdsourced online food images, when combined with food image recognition technologies, have the potential to offer a cost-effective and scalable solution for the assessment of the restaurant nutrition environment. While previous research has explored this approach and validated the accuracy of food image recognition technologies, much remains unknown about the validity of crowdsourced food images as the primary data source for large-scale assessments. In this paper, we collect data from multiple sources and comprehensively examine the validity of using crowdsourced food images for assessing the restaurant nutrition environment in the Greater Hartford region. Our results indicate that while crowdsourced food images are useful in terms of the initial assessment of restaurant nutrition quality and the identification of popular food items, they are subject to selection bias on multiple levels and do not fully represent the restaurant nutrition quality or customers\' dietary behaviors. If employed, the food image data must be supplemented with alternative data sources, such as field surveys, store audits, and commercial data, to offer a more representative assessment of the restaurant nutrition environment.

Fiscal policies to influence consumption of food and beverages are increasing globally. Most food demand studies focus on understanding consumer response in the context of food and beverages consumed at home. Yet food and beverages consumed outside of the home play an increasing part in our diets, and demand elasticities for these settings are crucial for assessing the potential impact of such fiscal measures on promoting healthier diets. Utilising a large out-of-home food purchase dataset from Great Britain in 2016-17, this paper analyses the demand for seven food groups across four outlet types, including restaurants, fast-food outlets, food retails and other outlets. We use a demand system approach to estimate price and expenditure elasticites of demand, along with procedures to account for censoring, expenditure and price endogeneity. Our results indicate substantial variations in consumer responses across outlet types. Demand for main meals is expenditure and price elastic in restaurants but inelastic in fast-food outlets. For sugary drinks, the demand is generally price elastic except in fast food outlets. These differences across outlet types highlight the complexity in studying out-of-home food and beverage consumption and the importance of accounting for where consumers buy from when designing, implementing and evaluating consumer responses to fiscal measures.