“Waiter, the checkmark please”: Restaurant managers' and customers' evaluations of nudges towards sustainable food choices

Abstract

Food choices play a key role in sustainability. Restaurants, given their significant impact on food-related carbon emissions, are a prime focus for nudging interventions targeting sustainable food choice. Before these interventions can be implemented, we need to know more about both restaurant managers' and customers' approval of these interventions. In this series of studies, we measured the evaluation of eight different co-created nudge strategies towards sustainable eating to be implemented in a restaurant context in two large, representative samples of restaurant managers (n = 125) and customers (n = 989). We find that overall, both restaurant managers and customers are positive about all proposed nudges. For restaurant managers, only the default was evaluated slightly less positive than the others, while for customers, information indicators (visibility, checkmarks, and icons) were slightly preferred. For restaurant managers, appreciation of nudges was predicted by the degree they saw vegetarianism as an opportunity, while for customers this was predicted by perceived outcome efficacy of restaurants, their own willingness to change, their libertarianism, and their perceived importance of vegetarian food. Furthermore, restaurant managers and customers both clearly evaluated “local” and “vegetarian” food differently. Despite overall positive evaluations, actual implementation was very low, which may relate to restaurant managers being unaware of customers' positive appraisal. Future research should endeavor to find what practical barriers towards implementation restaurant managers encounter, and how the role of customers can be supportive of the global transition towards sustainable food choices.