Breaking niche sustainable products into the mainstream: Organic milk and free‐range eggs

Abstract

We contribute to the existing literature on factors influencing sustainable product consumption behavior by (a) employing actual supermarket sales data from over 300 outlets in England covering up to 18 million customers, and by (b) examining two products that can both be labeled as sustainable but have very different market positions: organic milk as a typical niche product, and free‐range eggs which (based on market share) can be seen as a mainstream product. Our study has looked into the influence of factors such as deprivation and race, which have not previously been looked into. The results partially confirm previous research, which is mostly based on self‐reported behavior, identifying both price and deprived catchment areas as barriers but green attitudes as a facilitator while more affluent people purchase organic milk. What is new from our work is that convenience stores have a negative influence and for organic milk, older families and those aged 25–44 years have a positive influence. Crucially, we identify clear differences between purchasing behaviors regarding niche and mainstream products in our analysis: while purchases of organic milk can be predicted by a wide range of sociodemographic factors, this is not the case for free‐range eggs. Here, besides price and green attitudes, there are no other influences on behavior. The results of our study can therefore provide fresh insight into the debate around recent attempts to mainstream sustainable product consumption.

Encouraging green product purchase: Green value and environmental knowledge as moderators of attitude and behavior relationship

“…Such phenomenon points out the attitude–behavior gap which has long been discussed in previous literature (Gifford & Sussman, 2012; Lutz, 1991; Stern, 2000), including in the domain of pro‐environmental behavior (Aschemann‐Witzel & Niebuhr Aagaard, 2014; Carrus et al, 2008; Chintakayala et al, 2018; Shin et al, 2018), which is simply called the “environmental attitude–behavior gap,” “environmental gap” (Redondo & Puelles, 2017), or “ethical purchasing gap” (Nicholls & Lee, 2006). The fact that attitudes do not always correlate to a subsequent change in behavior can be attributed to a moderator effect (Alwitt & Berger, 1993; Gifford & Nilsson, 2014; Papaoikonomou et al, 2011; Stojanova et al, 2021).…”

Dietary Patterns Derived from UK Supermarket Transaction Data with Nutrient and Socioeconomic Profiles

“…There are examples of sales data at scale from loyalty card transactions in location planning research, rather than in a nutritional context, using data to predict demand in tourist destinations [ 17 ]. We have additionally seen transaction data in sustainability research investigating purchase patterns of organic and free range foods [ 18 ]. More recently research is emerging using transaction data to better understand nutrition and related health outcomes [ 19 , 20 ].…”

Green Marketing as the Source of the Competitive Advantage of the Business

“…Some companies have implemented green marketing as the main focus of business for the company (Nadanyiova et al, 2015); (Chahal et al, 2014); (Ottman et al, 2006), but there are also companies that view green marketing as only a minor marketing strategy or a niche / niche market strategy (Chintakayala et al, 2018); (Smith, 2006). The support of public policy makers by increasing attention to environmental issues, can increasingly be indicated that environmental care is a potential business area to be used as a business strategy (Peattie & Crane, 2005).…”