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Spontaneous Variety-Seeking Meal Choice in Business Canteens Impedes Sustainable Production

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  • Pascal Ohlhausen

    (Institute of Vocational Education and Work Studies, Department Education for Sustainable Nutrition and Food Science, Technische Universität Berlin, 10587 Berlin, Germany)

  • Nina Langen

    (Institute of Vocational Education and Work Studies, Department Education for Sustainable Nutrition and Food Science, Technische Universität Berlin, 10587 Berlin, Germany)

Abstract

Sustainable meal choices in the out-of-home catering market are essential to attaining the Sustainable Development Goals. This study investigated consumers’ acceptance of different features that help service providers to work more sustainably. For this purpose, data of a choice experiment and a supporting online questionnaire were analyzed using latent class analysis (LCA) and the data of n = 373 employees. Examined attributes in the choice experiment were menu variety, menu type, ordering system, ingredients and price. LCA led to four consumer segments: variety seekers (27.6%), spontaneous decisionmakers—vegetarian (25.7%), spontaneous decisionmakers—meat (24.1%) and vegetarians/vegans (22.6%). Results showed that consumers in all four segments expected to have the choice between different menus in company canteens. Moreover, they preferred spontaneous choice to preordering. Both preferences hamper sustainable production and consumption in the catering sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Pascal Ohlhausen & Nina Langen, 2021. "Spontaneous Variety-Seeking Meal Choice in Business Canteens Impedes Sustainable Production," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-15, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:2:p:746-:d:480119
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    Cited by:

    1. Oliver Meixner & Petra Riefler & Karin Schanes, 2021. "Sustainable Consumer Behavior and Food Marketing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-4, November.
    2. Xinye Hu & Ofir Turel & Wanting Chen & Jia Shi & Qinghua He, 2023. "The effect of trait-state anxiety on choice overload: the mediating role of choice difficulty," DECISION: Official Journal of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Springer;Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, vol. 50(2), pages 143-152, June.

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