Information about health and environmental benefits has minimal impact on consumer responses to commercial plant-based yoghurts

Abstract

To assess the role of factual personal health and environmental benefit information on consumer responses to plant-based (PB) yoghurts, a central location test (CLT) was conducted with 338 New Zealand consumers. Participants tasted a series of commercially available PB yoghurts and provided sample evaluations according to a multi-variable measurement approach where liking, emotional response, sensory characterisation (appearance and taste), holistic and conceptual perceptions, and attitudinal evaluations were obtained for each sample. A between-subjects experimental design was used, with participants allocated to one of three experimental conditions (ECs) in which the PB yoghurt samples were presented blind (B), with factual information about personal health (PH) benefits of PB foods and yoghurts, or with factual information about environmental (ENV) benefits of PB foods and yoghurts. The two key results were low sample acceptability of the commercially available yoghurts and a minimal impact of factual health and environmental information on judged variables. The results were interpreted as showing the limitations of providing health and environmental benefit information for changing consumers’ behaviour toward PB yoghurt when sensory product quality is poor. Against this background, research to improve PB yoghurt quality is paramount. Possible reasons for the limited effect of factual PH and ENV information are discussed, and suggestions are made for future research on possible uses of extrinsic variables to modulate choice and consumption of PB yoghurt and other PB foods.