Heal thyself

Order of meals at the counter and distance between options affect student cafeteria vegetarian sales

“…Firstly, they are based on 105,143 meal selections across two years. By contrast, a recent systematic review found a combined total of only 11,290 observations across 18 studies testing other choice architecture interventions to reduce meat consumption 5 . The current studies tested one intervention only, thus avoiding the confounding effects present in other studies on order 6 .…”

“…Rearranging the physical order in which foods are presented -e.g. in cafeteria lines -is widely advocated to achieve dietary change 4 , but the evidence for this is limited in both quantity and quality (see Supplementary Information (SI) Background) 5,6 . If effective, placing vegetarian options first would be a simple approach for reducing meat consumption.…”

“…These findings have important implications for catering policies: a nudge which we predicted would increase vegetarian sales can work, but can also have no effect or even be counterproductive. For caterers interested in reducing meat sales, changing order -at least without pilot-testing its impacts -may be an unreliable and less effective strategy than alternative approaches such as increasing the relative availability of vegetarian options 9 or reducing the serving sizes of meat 5 . Further studies are needed to specify more precisely the conditions under which placing vegetarian meals first increases the likelihood of their selection.…”