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Introduction: Exploring Consumer Acceptance of Smart Food Packaging in China

Food safety is a global concern, with Chinese consumers exhibiting heightened anxiety. Traditional methods like preservatives and heat treatment fall short of modern consumer demands for "clean label" and "minimal processing." This necessitates alternative approaches, with food packaging playing a pivotal role. Smart packaging, encompassing both active and intelligent packaging technologies, offers innovative solutions.

Active packaging (AP) interacts with the product, package, and environment to enhance shelf life, maintain quality, and inhibit microbial growth. This is achieved through processes like oxygen absorption, moisture control, and the release of antimicrobial agents. Intelligent packaging (IP), meanwhile, utilizes sensors and indicators to monitor product status and quality. It provides information on origin, storage conditions, and microbial activity.

While smart packaging holds immense potential, several barriers hinder its widespread adoption, including material compliance, environmental sustainability, and consumer perception. This study focuses on the latter, particularly in the Chinese context, where limited research exists.

Previous studies, mainly conducted in Western societies, have identified factors influencing consumer acceptance of smart packaging, such as education, gender, and brand preference. Research on food consumption behavior in Turkey has highlighted the influence of age, income, and health concerns. Studies in China have indicated that women, highly educated individuals, families with children, and the elderly have greater food safety concerns. Research on genetically modified foods suggests a positive correlation between younger age and acceptance of such innovations. Additionally, consumption behavior and trust in institutions have been shown to impact acceptance of new technology. Trust, often based on perceived accuracy, expertise, transparency, and public concern, plays a crucial role in forming consumer perceptions and trust in food products.

This study, conducted in a relatively affluent area of Beijing, aims to assess Chinese consumers' attitudes toward existing food packaging and explore factors linked to their perception and acceptance of smart packaging. By understanding these dynamics, this research aims to contribute to the successful adoption of smart packaging in China.

1 | INTRODUCTION
Food safety, the assurance that a food product will not cause harm if ingested according to its intended use, is a global issue that af- fects consumer health in industrialized and developing countries (Lam, Remais, Fung, Xu, & Sun, 2013). For this reason, improving
Ting Li and Kayna Lloyd contributed equally to this work.
food safety is an ongoing and critical exploration for governments worldwide, especially as consumer concerns are rapidly increasing. Of interest for this study are the food safety concerns from Chinese individuals, as reports indicate that concerns are at an all-time high (Ortega, Wang, Wu, & Olynk, 2011). Meanwhile, consumers are de- manding better quality and taste, with concepts such as “clean label” and “minimal processing” gaining more popularity. The traditional method to ensure food safety, such as adding preservative and ther- mal processing, would not satisfy the need of the modern consumer. Therefore, an alternative method of assuring consumers of the safety of a food item is through effective food packaging systems. As a pervasive element involved in modern consumption behaviors, packaging provides a wide range of functionalities and benefits to consumers. Food items often rely on packaging elements to main- tain product quality, prevent product losses, facilitate transportation and storage, and provide marketplace differentiation (Steenis, van Herpen, van der Lans, Ligthart, & van Trijp, 2017). While inert or traditional food packaging has provided protection for food items, complexities in distribution and consumer demand have resulted in an extensive exploration into novel food packaging techniques. These packaging techniques, often classified as “smart packag- ing,” encompass both active and intelligent packaging technologies (Vanderroost, Ragaert, Devlieghere, & De Meulenaer, 2014). Active packaging (AP) involves the interaction between the product, the package, and the environment (Biji, Ravishankar, Mohan, & Srinivasa Gopal, 2015; Dobrucka & Przekop, 2019). It aims to extend shelf life, maintain nutritional and organoleptic quality, inhibit pathogenic and spoilage microorganism growth, and prevent the migration of con- taminants (Altan, Aytac, & Uyar, 2018; Guo, Jin, Wang, Scullen, & Sommers, 2014; Sohail, Sun, & Zhu, 2018). The primary methods of action for AP involve the absorption of oxygen, ethylene, moisture, carbon dioxide, and odors; and the release of carbon dioxide, eth- anol, flavor, and antimicrobial agents (Alvarado et al., 2018; Lloyd, Mirosa, & Birch, 2019; Vermeiren, Devlieghere, van Beest, de Kruijf, & Debevere, 1999; Yildirim et al., 2018). Intelligent packaging (IP) systems aim to detect, record, trace, or communicate informa- tion regarding the product state and quality within the food chain through sensors, indicators, or radio frequency identification sys- tems. Information concerning the origin, composition, storage con- dition, headspace composition, and microbial growth are all involved in IP (Aday & Yener, 2015; Lloyd et al., 2019; Realini & Marcos, 2014; Robertson, 2012; Yam, 2012).
Experts have forecasted that smart packaging is the future of food packaging (Aday & Yener, 2015; Realini & Marcos, 2014; Vanderroost et al., 2014). It is uncontested that, from a scientific standpoint, smart packaging technologies can provide a competitive advantage to products in the food distribution system (Yam, 2012). However, there are still some factors hindering the application of such technologies to food products, such as full contact material compliance, environmental sustainability, and especially perception and acceptance of consumers which is crucial to leading to success or widespread failure (O’ Callaghan & Kerry, 2016). Therefore, con- sumer reactions toward application of new technologies need to be taken into account before introduction.
Some smart packaging researches based in Western societies have been conducted by Aday and Yener (2015), O’Callaghan and Kerry (2016), and Barska and Joanna (2016), whereas few studies have considered consumer perception and acceptance of these novel developments in China. Previous researches conducted by Aday and
Yener (2015), and Barska and Joanna (2016) indicated that education, gender, age, and brand preference influenced consumer acceptance of smart packaging technologies. Similarity, AkbayTiryaki and Gul (2007) exploring the vital factors connected with food consumption behav- ior in Turkey and indicated the age, income, education, household size, presence of children, and health concern had a pronounced influence on food consumption behavior (Akbay et al., 2007). Liu and Niyongira (2017) found that women, highly educated consumers, families with children, and elderly members of society have a higher level of food safety concern when compared to the rest of the population in China. And other studies about consumer acceptance of genetically modified foods, such as research conducted by Grimsrud, McCluskey, Loureiro, and Wahl (2004), found that socioeconomic characteristics were sig- nificant, with positive attitudes toward genetically modified foods linked to the young. As stated by Sajdakowska et al. (2018), younger and well-educated people with higher income were the most innova- tive and unmarried respondents were more likely to accept innovations in food than those who were either or had been married in Poland. As a result, demographic variables may have an association with the ac- ceptance of smart food packaging. Besides, consumption behavior and trust in institutions may be associated with acceptance of new tech- nology. Graham and Jeffery (2012) indicated consumption behaviors also have impact on purchasing decision making by eye-tracking exper- iment. Furthermore, a multitude of studies have shown that trust levels strongly influence purchasing decisions (Eiser, Miles, & Frewer, 2002; Groothuis & Miller, 1997; Jia & James Harvey, 2018). And a positive attitude toward trust can enhance consumer preference to technolo- gy-embedded food (Ricci, Banterle, & Stranieri, 2018). Formulating and developing trust is complicated as it is based upon various inter-related and nonrelated elements such as perceived accuracy, expertise, knowl- edge, transparency, and public concern (Peters, Covello, & McCallum, 1997). Through the use of symbolic and functional attributes, consum- ers construct and associate their perception and trust of a food prod- uct (Sirgy & Samli, 1985). Vandermoere, Blanchemanche, Bieberstein, Marette, and Roosen (2011) have stated that acceptance of nanotech- nology in food industry is associated with consumers trust. Therefore, the questionnaire was designed based on these studies.
The investigation in this study was carried out to assess consum- ers' attitudes toward existing food packaging and explore factors linked with their perception and acceptance of smart packaging. In order to ensure that participants have already interacted with these items, research was conducted within an educational and relatively affluent area within Beijing.