Are consumers' attitudes regarding sustainability reflected on food choices? Evidence from a Discrete Choice Experiment in 10 European countries
Submitted: 2024-04-28
|Accepted: 2024-11-13
|Published: 2025-12-19
Copyright (c) 2025 Gloria Solano-Hermosillas, Jesus Barreiro-Hurle
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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Keywords:
Attitude-behaviour gap, consumer behaviour, environmental sustainability, food products, healthiness
Supporting agencies:
Abstract:
We assess whether consumers' attitudes towards sustainability are reflected in their food choices. Using an online survey, we elicit from 20,000 consumers in ten European countries the main motives when purchasing food, front-of-pack elements that signal differences in sustainability and purchase decisions. At the aggregated level, our results show that self-declared purchase motives translate into consumer choices, albeit in a divergent manner for the health and environmental components of sustainability. The findings can help policymakers and businesses to learn about the gap between attitudes and purchase behaviour and help them develop appropriate policies and strategies to promote sustainable food purchases.
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