Market actors have a role to play in enabling sustainable food transitions. One challenge for these actors is how to promote plant-based foods in ways that appeal to a growing number of consumers. Here we test how different plant-based related labels affect consumer appraisals of a range of foods (cookies, sausages, cheese, chocolate, pasta). In two studies (pre-registered; = 1148, = 491), we examined the effects of a ‘vegetarian’, ‘vegan’, or ‘plant-based’ label (compared to no label) on five attributes (healthy, tasty, ethical, pure, environmentally friendly) related to the products. We also measured self-reported likelihood to purchase the products. Overall, the results indicated that the ‘plant-based’ label was slightly more appealing to participants than the ‘vegetarian’ and ‘vegan’ labels. However, contrary to our expectations, neither consumers' information-seeking tendencies nor their pre-existing attitudes toward plant-based foods influenced (i.e., moderated) the effects of the labels. Anticipated taste was a strong and consistent predictor of purchase likelihood for all labeled products, but the ethical and pure attributes also accounted for unique variance in this outcome variable. Taken together, our findings and discussion provide insights into the role of labels and label terminology on consumer appraisals of plant-based foods.

中文翻译：

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素食、纯素还是植物性食物？比较不同标签如何影响消费者对植物性食品的评价

市场参与者在实现可持续粮食转型方面可以发挥作用。这些参与者面临的一项挑战是如何以吸引越来越多消费者的方式推广植物性食品。在这里，我们测试不同的植物相关标签如何影响消费者对一系列食品（饼干、香肠、奶酪、巧克力、面食）的评价。在两项研究（预注册；= 1148，= 491）中，我们研究了“素食”、“纯素食”或“植物性”标签（与无标签相比）对五个属性（健康、美味、道德、纯净、环保）与产品相关。我们还测量了自我报告的购买产品的可能性。总体而言，结果表明，“植物性”标签比“素食”和“纯素食”标签对参与者更具吸引力。然而，与我们的预期相反，消费者的信息寻求倾向和他们对植物性食品的先前态度都没有影响（即调节）标签的效果。预期口味是所有标签产品购买可能性的强烈且一致的预测因素，但道德和纯粹属性也解释了该结果变量的独特差异。总而言之，我们的研究结果和讨论提供了关于标签和标签术语在消费者对植物性食品评价中的作用的见解。