These are the slides from my presentation for Thammasat University School of Global Studies on 9 May 2023. I discuss the challenges of making diets more sustainable, what behavioural science can offer, and some recent work on visual communication in the plant-based foods category and what we can learn about encouraging sustainable food consumption.

1. Behavioural Economics & Sustainable
Food Consumption: Where are we?

2. How to promote sustainable diets?
•The challenges of sustainable food consumption
•Case study: plant-based foods in Thailand
•Learnings from behavioural science & marketing

3. Global food system and sustainability
• The most recent IPCC report highlights the need for urgent
action to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs).
• Focus on SDG 3 (health), SDG 12 (responsible consumption) and
SDG 13 (climate action).
• The global food system contributes approximately one-
quarter of GHGs.
• Plant-based food diets have smaller environmental impacts,
including GHGs, water, energy, fertilizer, and land.
Sources: Springmann, M., et al. (2018). Options for keeping the food system within environmental limits. Nature, 562, 519-525;
Willett, W., et al. (2019). Food in the Anthropocene: The EAT-Lancet commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. Lancet, 393: 447–92.

5. Thais say they are willing to change
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
GLOBAL Japan Australia Singapore Germany USA Malaysia China Philippines Indonesia Thailand Vietnam
% Agree they are eating more plant-based foods (June 2021)
Source: PWC Global Consumer Insights Pulse Survey 2021 (https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/consumer-markets/consumer-insights-survey.html)

6. Why do Thais eat plant-based products?
REASONS FOR EATING REASONS FOR NOT EATING
30% Have nutritional ingredients 35% Difficult to find in shops
29% Good for health / healthy
foods
34% Expensive
24% Make me feel trendier 25% Not necessary to eat
23% Tastes good 12% Only offer in frozen / chilled
products
22% Convenient and easy to cook 12% Family / friends do not eat
Source: Marketbuzzz. (2022). August 2022 Study of Thai Eating Habits. Personal Communication.

7. Defaults can shift menu choices
University of Cambridge study
Ø94,000 cafeteria meal choices from
2,140 repeat diners
Menu changed from 1 in 4 to 2 in 4
plant-based choices
Ø40-80% more plant-based choices
Ø33% reduction in carbon emissions
Ø28% reduction in land use
ØAnd no complaints! J
Source: Emma E. Garnett el al., "Impact of increasing vegetarian availability on meal selection and sales in cafeterias," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2019). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1907207116

8. Flipping
the
default

9. Social norms
don’t work
when they
apply to a
minority

10. Dynamic norms also shift menu choices
Source: Sparkman, G. & Walton, G.M. (2017) Dynamic Norms Promote Sustainable Behavior, Even if It Is Counternormative. Psychological Science, 28 (1), 1663-
1674.

11. Can simple visual approaches also work?
Source: De-loyde, K., et al. (2022). Promoting sustainable diets using eco-labelling and social nudges: A randomised online experiment. Behavioural Public Policy, 1–17.

12. Simple visuals more effective than nudges
Source: De-loyde, K., et al. (2022). Promoting sustainable diets using eco-labelling and social nudges: A randomised online experiment. Behavioural Public Policy, 1–17.

13. Case study: Marketing of
plant-based foods
• Sampling of brands and products available in
Bangkok retail outlets
• Fieldwork from January to July 2022
• 112 products; 30 brands
• Ready meals, cooking ingredients, meat
product replacements, restaurants, dairy
substitutes
• Analysis of brand communication strategies:
• Key meanings communicated on
packaging (plus websites, in-store
promotions, social media)
• Is sustainability being communicated?

14. More than half of brands were Thai
(*includes restaurants, delivery, dairy substitutes)
Brand name Number
of items
Country of
origin
Absolute Plant 4 Thailand
Alpha 1 USA
Beyond Meat 3 USA
Bird’s Eye Green Cuisine 3 UK
Broccoli Revolution* 3 Thailand
First Pride 4 USA
Fry’s 7 UK
Harvest Gourmet (Nestle) 4 Switzerland
Healthiful (Central Retail) 4 Thailand
Krop 7 Thailand
Let’s Plant Meat 7 Thailand
Linda McCartney’s 1 UK
Mantra 5 Thailand
Meat Avatar 4 Thailand
Meat Zero 6 Thailand
Brand name Number
of items
Country of
origin
Meatly (Betagro) 3 Thailand
Meatoo 2 Thailand
MJ (Mudjai) 6 Thailand
More Meat 1 Thailand
Morning Star Farms 3 USA
Never Meat 7 Thailand
NoMeat 1 UK
OMG Meat 3 Thailand
Omnimeat 2 Canada
Plant Ever (Cargill) 2 USA
Pranaa* 1 Thailand
Quorn 5 UK
So Good* 1 Australia
Swees* 5 Thailand
V Farm 4 UK

16. Each element
of packaging,
websites and
social media
was decoded
for meaning

17. Sustainability is not the most common message
0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% 70.0% 80.0% 90.0% 100.0%
Quality
Natural
Protein
Purity
Meat-free
Vegetarian
Sustainable
Vegan
Healthy
Tasty
Plant-based
Source: Semiotic analysis of plant-based products available in Bangkok retail outlets (January-July 2022; 112 products)

18. Brand names are
English and meaty
• The majority of brand names are
English with Latin script.
• The word ‘plant’ is used in three
brand names, although much
more frequently as a product
description.
• The word ‘meat’ is used in 11 of
the 30 brand names:
• There is some “meat is bad”
narrative but not directly
linked to sustainability.
Source: Semiotic analysis of plant-based products available in Bangkok retail outlets (January-July 2022; 112 products)

19. Earthy colours dominate
0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% 70.0% 80.0% 90.0% 100.0%
Gold
Grey / silver
Pink
Dark blue
Purple
Light blue
Red
Orange
Black
Yellow
Transparent
Brown
White
Green
Source: Semiotic analysis of plant-based products available in Bangkok retail outlets (March-July 2022; 112 products)

20. Cooked food and leaf visuals dominate
• Consistent use of imagery of cooked food as the
most prominent visual on the front-side of
packaging.
• Leaves are often use to try and communicate nature
in multiple ways:
• As part of front-of-pack food imagery.
• Stylized cartoon or drawing in the background.
• Embedded into the brand name or logo (most common).
• So Good is the only brand to use a visual of a nature
scene.
Source: Semiotic analysis of plant-based products available in Bangkok retail outlets (January-July 2022; 112 products)

21. Labelling & quality marks are inconsistent
• Most frequently used to communicate health,
nutritional & dietary messages, but not consistently.
• Vegan products are identified with a range of quality
marks including ‘100% vegan’, ’vegan approved’, ‘suitable
for vegans’, ‘vegan friendly’ and more.
• Vegetarian endorsements are less common but generally
simpler.
• Two brands identify as ‘flexitarian’.
Source: Semiotic analysis of plant-based products available in Bangkok retail outlets (January-July 2022; 112 products)

23. Does identity-based language work?
DON’T USE
• Meat-free
• Means less of what meat eaters
like
• Vegan
• “Vegan” means “different from
me” (seen as an out-group in
social media)
• Vegetarian
• “Vegetarian” means “healthy –
but unsatisfying – food”
DO USE
• Flavour and appearance
• Invoke the senses
• Use concrete language
• Provenance
• Provenance is evocative (e.g.,
“Cumberland spiced sausage”)
• More appealing words for plant-
based options
• “Field-grown”, “garden”
Wise, J. (2019) “It’s All in a Name: How to Boost the Sales of Plant-Based Menu Items”; Bacon, L., Wise, J., Attwood, S., & Vennard, D. (2018). “Language of Sustainable Diets.” Technical Note;
Turnwald, B. P. et al. (2017). Association between indulgent descriptions and vegetable consumption: Twisted carrots and dynamite beets. JAMA internal medicine, 177(8), 1216-1218.

24. Why are plant-based products placed together?

25. TASTY
Few brands
lead with
sustainability
messaging
S
U
S
T
A
I
N
A
B
L
E
MEAT-FREE
HEALTHY
PLANT-BASED
Source: Semiotic analysis of plant-based products available in Bangkok retail outlets (January-July 2022; 112 products)

26. Sustainable means
health not environment
• Most common sustainability-related message is the promotion
of healthy diets (SDG 3).
• Little reference to responsible consumption except that
“meat is bad” (SDG 12) or climate action (SDG 13).
• Only two brands, Beyond Meat and Absolute Plant, lead with
sustainability as a core message for their brands.
• “We believe there’s a better way to feed our future”.
• “You’re the next hero to save the world”.
• Very little reference to nature in communication.
• The only nature cues are green colours and leaves.
• ‘Connectedness to nature’ is associated with pro-
environmental behaviours.

27. Category needs better marketing strategy
1. Target people beyond those with a healthy lifestyle or a dietary
preference
• Use more inclusive identities and less prominent ‘labels’
• Group plant-based products with their meat-based alternatives in-store
2. Position products with more appealing visuals and messages
• Use vivid sensory language over functional descriptions (e.g., ‘plant-based
katsu’ or ‘juicy chicken katsu’?).
• Invoke nature more directly to trigger pro-environmental choices
3. Objective is more people eating plant-based foods more often
• Introduce simpler and more consistent labelling schemes for sustainability
• Combine these with defaults, dynamic norms and other nudges that work

28. thank you! any questions?
neil@sgs.tu.ac.th
graduate@sgs.tu.ac.th