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Traceability of food is of paramount importance to the increasingly sustainability-conscious consumers. Several tracking and tracing systems have been developed in the AgriFood sector in order to prove to the consumers the origins and processing of food products. Critical challenges in realizing food's traceability include cooperating with multiple actors on common data sharing standards and data models.

This research applies a design science approach to showcase traceability that includes preharvest activities and conditions in a case study. The authors demonstrate how existing data sharing standards can be applied in combination with new data models suitable for capturing transparency information about plant production.

Together with existing studies on farm-to-fork transparency, our results demonstrate how to realize transparency from field to fork and enable producers to show a complete bill of sustainability.

The existing standards and data models address transparency challenges in AgriFood chains from the moment of harvest up to retail (farm-to-fork) relatively well, but not what happens before harvest. In order to address sustainability concerns, there is a need to collect data about production activities related to product quality and sustainability before harvesting and share it downstream the supply chain. The ability to gather data on sustainability practices such as reducing pesticide, herbicide, fertilizer and water use are crucial requirements for producers to market their produce as quality and sustainable products.

Anthropomorphism is the innate human tendency to attribute human or human-like characteristics to non-human entities or objects. Even though it is widely used by marketing practitioners, there is a scarcity of academic research that systematically attempts to capture this phenomenon. The aim of the current study is to investigate anthropomorphism in product packages of the 2010 Nielsen’s Top 100 grocery brands in the UK.

This study uses a mixed-method design combining quantitative content analysis and correspondence analysis. The former methodology allowed for documentation of anthropomorphic package elements, whereas the latter facilitated the study of structural relationships between anthropomorphic cues and product-related attributes such as type, category and target market.

The findings reveal that anthropomorphism is widely used in the packaging of grocery brands in the sample investigated. Moreover, the evidence shows that there appears to be an association between anthropomorphism and product-related attributes.

The current study contributes to both theory and practice. It illuminates the under-investigated interface of anthropomorphism and marketing by capturing anthropomorphic elements appearing in product packaging. The combination of anthropomorphic package elements and product-related attributes may assist managers in designing their packages to provide unique product experiences.

This study serves as a roadmap for both academics and practitioners wishing to engage in a fruitful dialogue on the emerging area of anthropomorphic marketing.