12 pages., ISSN 2141-2421, Via online journal., The overarching aim of this paper is to examine empirical findings on the arena of consumers’ behavior and attitude towards intake of street-foods (SFs) and fast foods (FFs) status as well as associated risks of consumption in China. Presently, consuming SFs and FFs have become a popular trend and is counted as the manifestation of modernity in most fast growing countries, for instance, China. The SFs and FFs are believed to be a panacea to the major socio-economic problems for countries having a large population. Over one-quarter of the century FFs and SFs become rapidly expanded in China through the quick service provision of already prepared foods with reasonable prices and source of employment for swarming open country and city inhabitants end to end to its supply. FFs and SFs are the most preferred by consumers because of safety issue, reasonable price, ready-made nature, easily accessible, portability, and so on. Concurrently, the nutritional and health concerns in China revealed that the government is very committed to quarantine and certifies FFs and SFs of food safety and public health, particularly after melamine was detected in milk in the year 2008. This later stimulated the Chinese regime to put into practice food safety law (FSL) in 2009 next to food hygiene law (FHL). FFs and SFs consumers in China are very conscious of food quality and give credit for safety than purchasing prices. Broadly speaking, most examined the papers indulged that FF and SF choice rely on ‘safety first’ by consumers in China. To sustain vendors stock and satisfy consumers’ demand for SF and FF, avoiding health risks, change in the existing perception and trust building is a priority issue.
Via online., Considering the rapidly changing business environment, staying competitive is a key issue and challenge for companies in the 21st century. The criteria of a company’s success and competitiveness is the changing behavior of the different economic actors and its influence. Through the information society came to the fore, the use of diverse information technology tools and methods has become a significant influence factor in terms of the entrepreneurs or company management and also the customers or other partners. Due to the rapid expansion of new technology developments, the role and importance of social media is continuously increasing. Also statistics show that one of the most regularly used IT tool is the social media and the different web 2.0 applications. The current study is intended to provide a better understanding how social media can emphasize the competitiveness of companies and format the consumer behavior in a special sector – the rapidly developing gastronomy industry. This paper presents an empirical research about the role of social media in the above mentioned industry based on the primary data which are gathered through a survey performed in Hungary. Beyond the empirical results presented, the paper also aims to provide some recommendations for research methodology – based on the international literature review and the Authors’ own experiences – both in gastronomy industry’s and customers’ point of view. Through the analysis the research hypotheses were examined and the most important correlations were identified between the survey results and the Authors’ initial supposition