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No AccessEveryday Consumer Aesthetics

From Oldie to Goldie: Humanizing Old Produce Enhances Its Appeal

Minkyung Koo ([email protected]) is assistant professor of marketing at the Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL 61820. Hyewon Oh ([email protected]) is a doctoral candidate in marketing at the Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL 61820. Vanessa M. Patrick ([email protected]) is the Bauer Professor of Marketing at the C. T. Bauer College of Business, University of Houston, Houston, TX. The three authors contributed to the article equally. Preparation of this article was supported by junior faculty grants from the Department of Business Administration at the Gies College of Business awarded to Minkyung Koo. The authors would like to thank the editor, associate editor, and reviewers for their constructive comments. The authors are also grateful to Sharon Shavitt and members of the University of Illinois marketing seminar group for their helpful comments on this paper. Correspondence should be addressed to Minkyung Koo.

Worldwide food waste amounts to approximately 1.3 billion tons every year. The desire for perfection (fresh and unblemished) in produce has been identified as one of the key reasons underlying this immense waste. This article identifies the need to shape consumer’s aesthetic preference for perfect produce to increase the acceptance of old and imperfect produce. We suggest that when old produce is humanized, it is evaluated more favorably, since it leads consumers to evaluate the old produce with a more compassionate lens. Four experiments show that (1) humanizing old produce enhances evaluation and purchase intent, and (2) consumer lay beliefs about human aging (an “old is gold” vs. a “young is good” lay theory) can influence the effectiveness of humanizing old produce to enhance its appeal. The current work offers practical managerial implications for retailers and marketers about the transformative potential of aesthetics in helping reduce food waste.