Abstract Over the last years palm oil has become a controversial product, due to its alleged harmful environmental and health effects. As a consequence, many food companies have taken concrete actions for meeting growing concerns. In this respect, a field survey was carried out amongst a sample of 607 Italian respondents, in order to highlight the potential effect of consumers’ attitudes towards health, social and environmental worries referred to palm oil consumption. Individual responses were statistically processed by means of a mixture model which allows for the detection of agreement and heterogeneity among respondents with respect to a given item. The results of this study suggest that respondents are worried for the current discussion on palm oil issues. This preoccupation affects both decision of purchasing and interest in further accurate knowledge. Overall, the consumer envisioned by the present study gives some hope on the effectiveness of consumer social responsibility in helping tackle food system sustainability concerns.

中文翻译：

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了解对棕榈油的信念和担忧：经验证据和政策影响

摘要 在过去的几年里，棕榈油因其对环境和健康的有害影响而成为一种有争议的产品。因此，许多食品公司已采取具体行动来应对日益增长的担忧。在这方面，对 607 名意大利受访者的样本进行了实地调查，以突出消费者对棕榈油消费所涉及的健康、社会和环境担忧的态度的潜在影响。个人回答通过混合模型进行统计处理，该模型允许检测受访者之间关于给定项目的一致性和异质性。这项研究的结果表明，受访者对当前关于棕榈油问题的讨论感到担忧。这种关注会影响购买决定和对进一步准确知识的兴趣。总体而言，本研究设想的消费者对消费者社会责任在帮助解决粮食系统可持续性问题方面的有效性提出了一些希望。