Omnivores, Flexitarians, Vegetarians, and Vegans Attach Different Importance to Eleven Motives for Daily Food Choice Decisions: Findings from 5111 UK Adults

Many initiatives aimed at improving population-wide health or providing food sources that are sustainable and environmentally friendly are focused on a switch from primarily meat-based diets to diets that are more vegetable-based. Building rational approaches to promoting such changes requires an understanding of consumers' motives for their dietary choices. Aiming to extend prior research, the present study examines eleven food choice motives across nine dietary groups varying in their adoption of diets that are plant-based, from omnivores through meat-reducing flexitarian groups to vegetarian sub-groups and vegans. Using a large population sample and Best-Worst scaling, a novel approach to assessing the relative importance of these motives, we show that the dietary groups are distinguished from one another by a relatively small number of food choice motives. The most substantive of these are Sensory Appeal and Animal Welfare concerns, the former being most characteristic of those consuming meat as part of their diet, and the latter being rated more important by the different vegetarian and vegan groups. Various forms of flexitarian diets are driven by differences in the relative importance of several food choice motives. Generally notable is the finding that, in contrast to previous studies, the importance attached to Health, Weight Control, and Natural Content is not particularly characteristic of any specific dietary approach. The research contributes new fine-grained knowledge about motives for different dietary choices, which can be harnessed for intervention and policy actions.