(M)eating out: Can modifying menus entice people to make vegetarian food choices?

*Disclaimer: Please note that parts of this English sci-fly were automatically translated.*

You might recognize the feeling: You plan to eat less meat, but when you’re in a restaurant, you see several meat dishes on the menu that make your mouth water. That’s why you may likely choose a non-vegetarian dish.

Earlier research (Biermann & Rau, 2020) shows that you are not the only one in that case; many people choose meat in a restaurant and flexitarians (people who regularly eat vegetarian food) more often choose to eat meat in a restaurant than at home. However, these non-vegetarian eating choices are not so good for our climate. Wouldn’t it be nice if making sustainable eating choices were made easier in a restaurant? Dutch researchers therefore investigated whether three small adjustments to a restaurant menu could make vegetarian food choices in restaurants easier.   CORE   

• The following menu modifications can make people more likely to choose a vegetarian dish:
  • Adding a label that emphasizes the delicious taste of the dish (hedonic label);
  • Highlighting a dish as the chef’s choice;
  • Making the dish more salient had no effect.
• Also, adding a hedonic label to the menu may cause vegetarian dishes to be perceived as tastier.
• These modifications are perceived as quite acceptable.
• Thus, adding a hedonic label, and to a slightly lesser extent adding a chef’s recommendation, seems to be a promising way to make customers choose vegetarian dishes more often.
• It should be acknowledged, however, that a large proportion of eating choices are made at home, so in this context, too, there is a need to explore how vegetarian choices can be facilitated.

  RESEARCH METHOD WHAT? This study first examined the effect of three restaurant menu modifications on the choice of whether or not to choose a vegetarian dish. Second, it examined the extent to which the modifications influenced the expected tastiness of vegetarian dishes. Third, it examined whether participants viewed the modifications as acceptable and effective, and whether they would return to the restaurant from the menu. WHO? Participants were 513 Dutch adults between the ages of 18 and 81 years old (mean = 34 years). The majority of participants were female (71%). Participants were excluded if they were vegetarian (eating no meat and no fish), vegan (eating no animal protein), or pescatarian (eating fish but no meat). Participants were divided into four groups. No menu modifications were made for the 129 participants in the control group. For the participants in the other three groups with 127, 124 and 133 participants, adjustments were made to the menu by placing a hedonistic label (“artisanal vegetable burger”), highlighting the dish as the chef’s choice, and making the dish more salient (by placing a box around the name of the dish), respectively.

Figure 1. Sample menu of the four different groups HOW? For this study, participants in the four groups were asked to choose a dish five times online from five different menus of a fictional restaurant. The menus differed between the control group, the hedonic label group, the chef’s choice group, and the salience group (see Figure 1 for an example of 1 of the 5 menus). Participants were first asked to choose which dish from the menu they wanted to eat. It was determined how often they chose the vegetarian dish. Second, it was measured how tasty they found the vegetarian dishes. Third, participants who were not in the control group were explained what modification had been made to the menu. These participants were then asked whether they approved of the modifications, whether they thought the modification caused more vegetarian meals to be chosen, and whether they themselves would return to the (fictitious) restaurant (all three measured on a scale of 1 to 5). RESULTS

• On average, participants chose 1 out of 5 vegetarian dishes. However, there appeared to be differences between the different groups (see Figure 2):
  • Participants in the hedonic label group chose the vegetarian dish 1.6 times more often than participants in the control group and 1.3 times more often than participants in the salience group.
  • Participants in the chef’s choice group chose the vegetarian dish 1.4 times more often than participants in the control group.
• Participants in the group with the hedonic label expected the vegetarian dish to be tastier than participants in the control group and the group with chef’s choice.
• Participants in the groups with menu adjustments were somewhat confident about returning to the restaurant (mean = 3.4), approved of the modification quite well (mean = 3.7) and found the modification somewhat effective (mean = 3.3). There were few differences between the three groups, although the effectiveness of the modification did appear to be higher in the hedonic label group than in the salience group.

Figure 2. Number of vegetarian dishes chosen (scale: 0-5) in the four groups. This sci-fly was written by Dr. Nina van den Broek (post-doctoral researcher at Radboud University) for RAD-blog, the blog on smoking, alcohol, drugs and diet.