New research from Australia’s La Trobe University shows that a majority of consumers are attracted to the term ‘plant-based’ on food labels over vegetarian and vegan.
The study – which surveyed US and German consumers – examined the impact of plant-based, vegan, and vegetarian labels on participant appraisals of how healthy, tasty, environmentally friendly, ethical, and pure a range of foods were perceived.
The research included traditionally fully animal-derived foods such as cheese or sausages and foods that may contain small amounts or no animal-sourced ingredients, such as pasta, chocolate, and cookies.
Lead researcher Dr Matthew Ruby said that participants from both countries showed a preference for foods labelled plant-based, rating them as tastier and purer, and stating that they were more likely to purchase them than the same foods with a vegan or vegetarian label.
However, whilst anticipated taste represented the main predictor of how likely participants would be to purchase the food products, perceptions of how ethical and pure the foods were also important. This was the case both for those who carefully read food labels when shopping and those who did not.
What’s more, the study showed some differences in terms of perception of nutrition, ethical, and environment qualities between markets.
“While our US participants also believed the plant-based foods were healthier, more ethical, and more environmentally friendly than the other labels, our German participants did not make the same connection,” said Dr Ruby. “This is perhaps because vegetarian and vegan labelling is more widespread in Germany, on both healthier whole food products and heavily processed foods.”
The study was conducted in response to calls for research on how to promote plant-based food products to appeal to larger numbers of consumers and to help brands improve their product marketing.
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