Consumers’ perceptions of healthiness and environmental friendliness of plant-based and dairy product concepts
OPEN ACCESS
Loading...
Author / Producer
Date
2024-05
Publication Type
Journal Article
ETH Bibliography
yes
Citations
Altmetric
OPEN ACCESS
Data
Rights / License
Abstract
The call to replace animal food products with plant-based products is increasing, mainly for environmental, ethical, and health reasons. To develop plant-based alternatives that will be accepted and consumed, it is important to understand how consumers perceive them. Many studies have examined consumers’ perceptions of meat and meat alternatives, and some have investigated how these perceptions differ from objective evaluations. However, few studies have addressed consumers’ perceptions of dairy products and plant-based dairy alternatives (PBDA). Therefore, this study investigated how Swiss consumers perceived commercially available dairy and PBDA product concepts in terms of their healthiness and environmental friendliness and whether their perceptions were consistent with objective evaluations (life-cycle assessment (LCA) and nutrient profiling) of the real products. In an online survey, 518 participants rated 7 dairy and 9 PBDA product concepts, including milk, cheese, and yogurt, as well as their plant-based alternatives. The results suggest that consumers overestimate the healthiness and environmental friendliness of dairy, especially hard cheese, while underestimating those of PBDA, especially soy, in contrast to LCA and nutrient profiling scores. PBDA are also not perceived as automatically healthier or environmentally friendlier just because they are milk-free. Even though PBDA are niche products and consumers seem skeptical of new products that replace traditional ones, their potential for widespread adoption might increase in the future depending on consumers healthiness and environmental friendliness perceptions thereof.
Permanent link
Publication status
published
External links
Editor
Book title
Journal / series
Volume
2
Pages / Article No.
100288
Publisher
Elsevier
Event
Edition / version
Methods
Software
Geographic location
Date collected
Date created
Subject
Consumers' perceptions; Plant-based dairy alternatives; Healthiness; Nutrient profiling; Environmental friendliness; Life-cycle assessment
Organisational unit
03780 - Siegrist, Michael / Siegrist, Michael