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Using small‐scale cross‐border trade and smuggling as an example of an informal practice carried out in many post‐socialist countries, the purpose of this paper is to explore which different meanings this activity possesses for the people being involved in it and in how far small‐scale cross‐border trade is being accepted and looked at by society. The authors hope to show the different connections between informal and formal activities and specificities of localities which people in the mentioned countries deploy when trying to secure their livelihood.

The authors used a qualitative empirical research including group discussions with small‐scale traders and small entrepreneurs, expert interviews with representatives of the border authorities and systematic observations at border crossing points and open‐air markets at the Finnish‐Russian, Polish‐Ukrainian, Polish‐Belarusian and Ukrainina‐Romanian borders.

The paper provides empirical insights about why people carry out smuggling and small‐scale trade and how these informal activities are perceived in the local environment. It suggests that informal economic cross‐border activities are often highly legitimized despite their illegal character. The border creates certain extra opportunities as it enables arbitrage dealings. Rather as a side effect though, the Schengen visa regime has evoked a decreasing profit margin of transborder economic activities. Therefore, it remains unclear whether the Eastern external EU border will serve as an informal economic resource in the future.

Thanks to a multisited qualitative approach to a very sensitive research topic, the paper allows empirical insights into meanings and uses of smuggling and cross‐border small‐scale trade.

Food companies and consumers are increasingly interested in healthy food and beverages. Coffee is one of the most commonly consumed beverages worldwide. There is increasing consensus that coffee consumption can have beneficial effects on human body. This paper aims at exploring Twitter messages' content and sentiment towards health attributes of coffee.

The research adopted a utilitarian and hedonic consumer behaviour perspective to analyse online community messages. A sample of 13,000 tweets, from around 4,800 users, that mentions keywords coffee and health was collected on a daily basis for a month in mid-2017. The tweets were categorized with a term frequency analysis, keyword-in-context analysis and sentiment analysis.

Results showed that the majority of tweets are neutral or slightly positive towards coffee’s effects on health. Media and consumers are dynamic Twitter users. Findings support that coffee consumption brings favourable emotions, wellness, energy, positive state of mind and an enjoyable and trendy lifestyle. Many tweets have a positive perception of coffee health benefits, especially relating to mental and physical well-being.

The high number of users and tweets analysed compensates the limited amount of time of data collection, Twitter messages' restricted number of characters and quantitative software analysis limitations.

The research provides valuable suggestions for food and beverage industry managers.

This work adds value to the literature by expanding scholars' research on food product attributes perception analysis by using social media as a source of information. Moreover, it provides valuable information on marketable coffee attributes.