Behavioural Economics to encourage meat eaters to eat more plants?

The Research Behind the Rebrand 

There’s growing evidence to support the claim that reducing our consumption of meat can be better for the planet, because agriculture accounts for about a quarter of the world’s global greenhouse gas emissions. The challenge, however, is how to encourage people to choose plant-based options over meat-based options more often? 

To explore this challenge, the World Resources Institute’s (WRI) Better Buying Lab teamed up with behavioural economists, marketing experts, and food companies in the US and the UK. 

Part of the challenge is the language used to describe plant-based food; labels such as ‘vegan’ or ‘vegetarian’ can be off-putting to customers and lack an element of indulgence. 

Key takeaways 

• Renaming a dish from a label like ‘vegetarian’ to a flavour-focused one lifted sales 13% at Panera and 76% at Sainsbury’s – real field trials, not marketing folklore. 

• A larger, multisite university study found taste-focused labels increased vegetable selection by 29% and consumption by weight by 39%. 

• The underlying bias is Priming – the idea that our behaviour is often influenced by unconscious cues. 

• Singapore’s Healthier Dining Programme found the same lever works through menu labelling and positioning alone, without removing or restricting any option. 

Case: Renaming Dishes at Panera and Sainsbury’s 

• Context: in the US, the WRI partnered with Panera Bread, quick-casual dining chain, to promote a ‘vegetarian black bean soup.’ While those customers who tried it liked it, the name itself didn’t arouse much attention. 

• Intervention: so, they tried calling it ‘Cuban black bean soup’ at a few select stores instead. For many, the word ‘Cuban’ evokes a more flavourful image than ‘vegetarian.’ The team conducted a similar experiment in the UK with Sainsbury’s, a major supermarket chain, rebranding its ‘meat-free sausage and mash’ to ‘Cumberland-spiced veggie sausage and mash’ (a name that harkens back to traditional British sausage preparation). 

• Result: in the Panera stores, sales increased by 13%; the Sainsbury’s rename increased sales by 76 percent! Both examples come from a real research collaboration, not just marketing folklore – the tests were run as part of the World Resources Institute’s Better Buying Lab⁴, and were first reported for a general audience by NPR¹. 

• Lesson for practice: consumers respond to descriptive, flavour-focused language, not to labels that foreground what a dish is missing. 

While it may seem pretty obvious that using the right language can make food sound more appealing, it’s an excellent example of the cognitive bias of Priming (the idea that our behaviour is often influenced by unconscious cues). 

Part of the challenge is the language used to describe plant-based food; labels such as ‘vegan’ or ‘vegetarian’ can be off-putting to customers and lack an element of indulgence.

In the US, the WRI partnered with Panera Bread, quick-casual dining chain to promote a ‘vegetarian black bean soup.’ While those customers who tried it liked it, the name itself didn’t arouse much attention; so, they tried calling it ‘Cuban black bean soup’ at a few select stores instead. In these stores, sales increased by 13%. For many, the word ‘Cuban’ evokes a more flavourful image than ‘vegetarian.’

The team conducted a similar experiment in the UK with Sainsbury’s, a major supermarket chain, that resulted in an even larger increase in sales. Sainsbury’s rebranded it’s ‘meat-free sausage and mash’ to ‘Cumberland-spiced veggie sausage and mash’ (a name that harkens back to traditional British sausage preparation) and sales increased by 76 percent!

While it may seem pretty obvious that using the right language can make food sound more appealing, it’s an excellent example of the cognitive bias of Priming(the idea that our behaviour is often influenced by unconscious cues).

The Evidence Goes Well Beyond Two Case Studies 

The Panera and Sainsbury’s examples are striking, but they’re not outliers. A randomised, multisite study across five university dining halls tracked nearly 140,000 real diner decisions on 71 different vegetable dishes over three months. Simply switching a dish’s label from a health-focused description to a taste-focused one – think ‘sizzlin’ garlic-roasted’ rather than ‘light and low-calorie’ – increased vegetable selection by 29%, and the amount of vegetables eaten by weight rose 39%³. The one caveat: the effect only held when the dish was genuinely tasty to begin with. Priming customers toward a product that doesn’t deliver on the promise just creates a different problem. 

Evidence From Asia-Pacific: Singapore’s Healthier Dining Programme 

The same lever has been tested closer to home. A cluster-randomised trial across university campuses in Singapore evaluated a ‘Healthier Dining Programme’ that used menu labelling and positioning – not restriction – to nudge students and staff toward healthier, and often plant-forward, options at their existing canteens². The result reinforces the same underlying point as the Panera and Sainsbury’s examples: how an option is presented at the point of choice moves real behaviour, without needing to remove or restrict what’s on offer. 

So, what should we take away from this as marketers? Well, there are many ways we can nudge our customers toward choosing our products but sometimes we need to step back and see the bigger picture. In this example, vegetarian food makers have only focused their marketing campaigns on those wanting to avoid meat, which is a much smaller percent of the population; there are many more people who want to buy ‘delicious’ food that is healthy for them, but they just need to be convinced that these products exist. 

The bottom line is that language matters and choosing the right words to describe your product can be a powerful tool to prime your customers to choose your product! 

Frequently Asked Questions 

What is the easiest way to get meat eaters to choose plant-based food? 

Describe the dish by its flavour, not by what it excludes. Field trials found flavour-focused renames increased sales by 13% to 76% over health- or diet-focused labels⁴. 

What is Priming, in behavioural economics terms? 

The idea that our behaviour is often influenced by unconscious cues – in this case, the specific words used to describe a dish before anyone tastes it. 

Does taste-focused labelling actually change how much people eat, not just what they order? 

Yes, in at least one study. Taste-focused labels increased not only vegetable selection by 29% but the amount of vegetables eaten by weight by 39%, compared with health-focused labels³. 

What This Means for Healthcare Marketers 

The same principle applies well beyond supermarket shelves and canteen menus. Dietary and lifestyle advice for patients managing diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or weight is routinely framed around restriction and deprivation – what patients can no longer have. The evidence above suggests that framing is working against itself. Describing a recommended diet in terms of what’s indulgent, flavourful, and satisfying about it – rather than what’s forbidden – primes patients toward the same food in a fundamentally more appealing frame, and the research suggests that reframing alone can shift what people actually choose to eat. 

Put the Science of Framing to Work in Your Patient Communications 

This is exactly the territory DeltaMV’s Healthcare Behavioural Strategy practice works in. We can help pharmaceutical and healthcare organisations reframe dietary, lifestyle, and adherence messaging around what patients gain, not just what they’re being told to give up. 

Want help reframing your patient nutrition or lifestyle messaging around genuine appeal? Get in touch with DeltaMV’s Healthcare Behavioural Strategy team. 

Sources

1. Godoy, M. (2019). How to get meat eaters to eat more plant-based foods? Make their mouths water. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/02/10/692114918/how-to-get-meat-eaters-to-eat-more-plant-based-foods-make-their-mouths-water 

2. Seah, S. S. Y., van Dam, R. M., Tai, B. C., Tay, Z., Wang, M. C., & Rebello, S. A. (2022). An evaluation of the healthier dining programme effects on university student and staff choices in Singapore: a cluster-randomized trial. Food Policy, 107, 102211. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2021.102211 

3. Turnwald, B. P., Bertoldo, J. D., Perry, M. A., Policastro, P., Timmons, M., Bosso, C., Connors, P., Valgenti, R. T., Pine, L., Challamel, G., Gardner, C. D., & Crum, A. J. (2019). Increasing vegetable intake by emphasizing tasty and enjoyable attributes: a randomized controlled multisite intervention for taste-focused labeling. Psychological Science, 30(11), 1603–1615. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619872191 

4. World Resources Institute. (2019). It’s all in a name: how to boost the sales of plant-based menu items. https://www.wri.org/insights/its-all-name-how-boost-sales-plant-based-menu-items