Dis­count can make fest­ival­go­ers choose green­er food - but it takes a lot

When festivalgoers stand in front of a burger stand with an appetite for something specific, it takes more than good intentions to change their choice.

A new study from Copenhagen Business School and DTU shows that price can indeed make some consumers choose more climate-friendly food. But the discount has to be large.

The researchers studied food choices among festivalgoers who had already decided to buy a beef burger. On average, the vegetarian burger had to be almost 40 percent cheaper before participants were willing to switch.

“This shows that financial incentives can change behaviour, but also that they need to be very substantial if they are to make a real difference,” says Alice Pizzo, Assistant Professor at the Department of Management, Society and Communication at CBS.

The study was conducted together with Toke Fosgaard from DTU and has just been published in Journal of Cleaner Production.

Once you have decided you want meat

The study was conducted at Roskilde Festival, where the researchers collaborated with a burger stand in one of the camping areas.

The researchers first asked festivalgoers whether they were planning to buy a burger. If they said yes, and if they were planning to buy a beef burger, they were invited to take part in the experiment.

They were then given the opportunity to choose a vegetarian burger instead - but at different discount levels.

According to her, the results show that taste and preferences still play a major role, even when the sustainable alternative becomes considerably cheaper.

11 percent would not switch - even with a large discount

One of the most striking findings in the study is that 11 percent of participants would not switch to the vegetarian burger, even when the discount was as high as 71 percent.

According to Alice Pizzo, this suggests that food choices are not only about price.

“For some people, the beef burger was simply what they wanted to eat, and no realistic discount could compensate for giving it up. That could reflect strong taste preferences, habits or attitudes,” she says.

However, she stresses that the study cannot say exactly why some participants stuck with the beef burger.

“Our study was not designed to identify the precise reason, so we should not over-interpret it. But it suggests that a group of consumers is relatively insensitive to financial incentives alone,” says Alice Pizzo.

The festival changes our green habits

The researchers also examined participants’ attitudes toward sustainability. Here, an interesting difference emerged.

Participants’ general sustainability attitudes at home did not predict whether they were willing to switch burgers. Their attitude toward sustainability at the festival, however, did.

“This is one of the most interesting results. It suggests that sustainability is not only a stable personal value, but also something that depends on context,” says Alice Pizzo.

According to her, we often behave differently on holiday or at festivals than we do in everyday life.

“The festival creates its own social norms and its own mindset. Therefore, situational attitudes may be more relevant for food choices than people’s general beliefs. In an exceptional context, people often allow themselves to make exceptions,” she says.

Alcohol made no clear difference

One might think that alcohol would make festivalgoers less receptive to both price and climate arguments. But the researchers found no evidence of this.

Participants were asked how intoxicated they felt and how many alcoholic drinks they had consumed that day. In the study, neither self-reported intoxication nor the number of drinks had a significant effect on how much of a discount participants required in order to switch.

“We thought that alcohol might reduce attention or make people less responsive to prices or environmental concerns. But within the level of intoxication we observed, we did not find evidence that it affected switching behaviour,” says Alice Pizzo.

She emphasizes, however, that the result should be interpreted with caution.

“One possible interpretation is that people’s food preferences remain relatively stable, even after they have had a few beers. But we measured self-reported intoxication, so I would be careful not to conclude that alcohol never matters,” she says.

Discounts are unlikely to be enough

Roskilde Festival had a target that the average meal at the festival should emit no more than the equivalent of 0.75 kg of CO2. According to the researchers’ calculations, this would require more than 83 percent of the burgers from the stand in the study to be vegetarian.

To achieve this, the vegetarian burger would, according to the study, have to be sold with a discount of around 43 percent compared to the beef burger.

“This suggests that it would be difficult to rely on subsidies alone. That does not mean subsidies have no role, because they clearly encourage some people to switch. But if they are the only tool, they quickly become very expensive,” says Alice Pizzo.

According to her, discounts should therefore be seen as one possible instrument among several — not as the whole solution.

Make the green choice easier

According to Alice Pizzo, festivals, canteens and public food providers should therefore look beyond price alone.

Organizers also have the opportunity to influence the food environment itself: Which dishes are most visible? What is easiest to choose? What appears normal? And which options are available in the first place?

“Prices certainly matter, but organizers also have control over the food environment itself. They can make vegetarian meals more visible, more attractive, more convenient, more available or even make them the default,” says Alice Pizzo.

According to her, this may be more effective than asking consumers to overcome their habits every time they order food.

“Festivals are particularly interesting because organizers have considerable influence over what is offered and how choices are presented. Above all, the festival environment has the potential to set the social norms, and people will mostly follow,” she says.

A laboratory for the green transition

On the surface, the study is simply about burgers at a festival. But according to the researchers, the results reach further than that.

Festivals are temporary societies where many people make quick choices in a bounded environment. This makes them obvious places to test how more sustainable choices can be made easier in practice.

“Our study specifically tested discounts, so we cannot directly compare them with other interventions. But we can say that discounts alone would have to be very large to create substantial changes in behaviour,” says Alice Pizzo.

The study therefore suggests that pricing should be combined with other measures.

“Instead of asking consumers to overcome strong habits every time they order food, it may be more effective to design food environments where the sustainable choice is also the easy and attractive choice,” she says.