I appreciate y’all studying this and helping us learn more about what we can do to advance plant-based options, and I especially love that it is open access. I do have some questions tho.
(A) “Despite widespread optimism, simply increasing the number of PMAs on restaurant menus may not consistently reduce meat selection.” Is this a reasonable expectation of any new food ingredient? Are there studies that show just adding a new ingredient, any ingredient whether plant-based or not, to a menu would result in uptake of it?
It seems to me, and I could be missing something, that this study might be studying the habitual nature of consumers, and less so their preferences about plant-based meat. A possible way to have controlled for this would be to have a new animal meat item and see how many people chose it.
If your general model of consumers, or people generally, is that they are cognitive misers, it seems that model would predict this result regardless if the additional items were plant based or meat based. So the casual factor would be habit, not the kind of protein. That would still be informative for plant-adoption and be a large barrier, but it be saying less about plant-based preferences and more about just needing to do proper UX and marketing.
(B) I saw y’all did awareness checks on what people thought the point of the study was, but curious why y’all didn’t do an awareness check on whether they noticed if there was a plant-based option in the menu or not? Like how many people are taking the time to read the small grey on white text? And with steak or chicken, you don’t need to because those are familiar and instantly understood. Without that, it is unclear to me, whether you are testing people’s preference for plant-based options or their ability to notice new items.
Hi Dorsal, thank you for your kind words about the work and thoughtful questions. I agree with Seth’s reply and would add for (A), there is some evidence of this effect for plant-based foods in general, for example: Garnett 2019, Parkin 2021, and Pechey 2022. I don’t know of any studies which have tested adding animal-based meats.
Thank you for the studies, will take a look. I would think you could find either adding a new meat-based products and its affects in the marketing literature or something analogous—though I haven’t looked.
In general, as an economist friend put it, “Changing options is a very strong intervention, like mechanically there should be an effect.” So I would expect a new meat option—BBQ chicken or whatever—to attract customers. But you are right, we don’t know that. On the other hand, our question was whether adding a chicken analogue would attract customers away from meat-based options, so whether a meat option would have also attracted customers is not really apropos of our estimand. It might help put our results in context, but it’s not the theoretical quantity we’re after. And there’s a lot to be said for keeping a study focused. Another thing manipulated means either a smaller sample per treatment arm or a more expensive experiment. Always we are triaging.
That would have been a fine thing to check, but in the online ordering context we were trying to simulate, you also view the options without necessarily “taking the time to read the small grey on white text,” so if they miss the new option, that’s experimental realism. Also, as Lewis points out, we have reason to think our numbers are broadly in line with what people are actually ordering, which is some evidence that people were actually reading. However it might be interesting to do a follow-up where someone actively promotes the new PMA, which restaurants sometimes do.
I appreciate the thoughtful reply. My view hasn’t changed to much, but I have updated towards more uncertainty.
Regards (2) however, I think the text being subtle is the opposite of “experimental realism” as when businesses introduce a new product they often give it a graphic treatment that highlights it and explain its value to customers.
Also, regarding Lewis’ comment, I don’t know how much a figure from 2015, a decade ago, when there was far less familiarity and knowledge of PMA can be regarded as converging evidence for your outcome.
I appreciate y’all studying this and helping us learn more about what we can do to advance plant-based options, and I especially love that it is open access. I do have some questions tho.
(A) “Despite widespread optimism, simply increasing the number of PMAs on restaurant menus may not consistently reduce meat selection.” Is this a reasonable expectation of any new food ingredient? Are there studies that show just adding a new ingredient, any ingredient whether plant-based or not, to a menu would result in uptake of it?
It seems to me, and I could be missing something, that this study might be studying the habitual nature of consumers, and less so their preferences about plant-based meat. A possible way to have controlled for this would be to have a new animal meat item and see how many people chose it.
If your general model of consumers, or people generally, is that they are cognitive misers, it seems that model would predict this result regardless if the additional items were plant based or meat based. So the casual factor would be habit, not the kind of protein. That would still be informative for plant-adoption and be a large barrier, but it be saying less about plant-based preferences and more about just needing to do proper UX and marketing.
(B) I saw y’all did awareness checks on what people thought the point of the study was, but curious why y’all didn’t do an awareness check on whether they noticed if there was a plant-based option in the menu or not? Like how many people are taking the time to read the small grey on white text? And with steak or chicken, you don’t need to because those are familiar and instantly understood. Without that, it is unclear to me, whether you are testing people’s preference for plant-based options or their ability to notice new items.
Hi Dorsal, thank you for your kind words about the work and thoughtful questions. I agree with Seth’s reply and would add for (A), there is some evidence of this effect for plant-based foods in general, for example: Garnett 2019, Parkin 2021, and Pechey 2022. I don’t know of any studies which have tested adding animal-based meats.
Thank you for the studies, will take a look. I would think you could find either adding a new meat-based products and its affects in the marketing literature or something analogous—though I haven’t looked.
something along these lines, though not exactly
thank you! I will give it a read
Hi Dorsal, good questions:
In general, as an economist friend put it, “Changing options is a very strong intervention, like mechanically there should be an effect.” So I would expect a new meat option—BBQ chicken or whatever—to attract customers. But you are right, we don’t know that. On the other hand, our question was whether adding a chicken analogue would attract customers away from meat-based options, so whether a meat option would have also attracted customers is not really apropos of our estimand. It might help put our results in context, but it’s not the theoretical quantity we’re after. And there’s a lot to be said for keeping a study focused. Another thing manipulated means either a smaller sample per treatment arm or a more expensive experiment. Always we are triaging.
That would have been a fine thing to check, but in the online ordering context we were trying to simulate, you also view the options without necessarily “taking the time to read the small grey on white text,” so if they miss the new option, that’s experimental realism. Also, as Lewis points out, we have reason to think our numbers are broadly in line with what people are actually ordering, which is some evidence that people were actually reading. However it might be interesting to do a follow-up where someone actively promotes the new PMA, which restaurants sometimes do.
I appreciate the thoughtful reply. My view hasn’t changed to much, but I have updated towards more uncertainty.
Regards (2) however, I think the text being subtle is the opposite of “experimental realism” as when businesses introduce a new product they often give it a graphic treatment that highlights it and explain its value to customers.
Also, regarding Lewis’ comment, I don’t know how much a figure from 2015, a decade ago, when there was far less familiarity and knowledge of PMA can be regarded as converging evidence for your outcome.
Excited to more research in this area! : )