Preferences for oat milk and ethical food choice motives of young educated people in Finland

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Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

School of Business | Master's thesis

Authors

Date

2019

Department

Tieto- ja palvelujohtamisen laitos

Major/Subject

Mcode

Degree programme

Information and Service Management (ISM)

Language

en

Pages

74

Series

Abstract

Plant-based milk consumption has witnessed a significant upward trend in recent years as customers are becoming more and more conscious of the healthiness and sustainability of their dietary choices. A better understanding of customer preferences for this type of product as well as ethical motives underlying customer preferences is essential for milk manufacturers. This study aims to (1) verify if the ethical food choice motives are different between two groups: plant-based milk users and dairy milk users, (2) determine the attributes that customers value the most in plant-based milk and identify potential customer segments based on their preferences and (3) identify the relationship between customers’ preferences and ethical food choice motives. An online survey was sent to Aalto students and there were 465 complete responses. The questions about ethical food choice motives asked respondents about their concern over different ethical motives underlying their daily food choice. The results reveal three main ethical food choice motives: sustainable development, political values, and religion, which aligns with the scale proposed by Lindeman and Väänänen (2000); and two groups (dairy milk consumers and plant-based milk consumers) are significantly different regarding these motives. The questions about customer preferences focus on a specific plant-based milk product: oat milk for coffee. Twelve attributes were determined for this type of product, based on earlier research and pre-study. These questions were designed as a best-worst scaling experiment where respondents were presented nine choice tasks, and respondents had to choose the most and least important attribute out of four attributes in each choice task. The result shows that on the aggregate level, the most important attributes in oat milk for coffee are taste, carbon footprint level, and price. Using Latent Class Analysis, five customer segments were identified based on their preference. The first segment, average foodies, are people who highly value oat milk with good taste. The second segment is called local environmentalists due to their preferences for environment-friendly Finnish products. The third segment, baristas, refers to coffee enthusiasts who prioritize the taste and the foaminess of the oat milk. The fourth segment, healthy environmentalists, resembles local environmentalists in their preferences for environment-friendly attributes, but nutrition is the most important attribute to them. Price-sensitive foodies, the last segment, are people who not only prefer oat milk with good taste but also with lower prices than the average oat milk. A comparison of ethical food choice motives across five customer segments reveals that they are significantly different in their ethical food choice motives. The biggest gap can be seen between local environmentalists and price-sensitive foodies: the former is most likely to be motivated by ethical food choice motives while the latter is least likely to do so. The difference in religious motives is not as significant as that in sustainable development and political values motives. Based on these results, milk manufacturers in Finland should focus on improving features such as taste and carbon footprint of oat milk as well as better understand their customers to develop their products and facilitate their marketing strategies to reach out to potential customers and retain the existing ones.

Description

Thesis advisor

Halme, Merja

Keywords

ethical food choice motives, customer preferences, food choice, plan-based milk, oat milk, best-worst scaling, Finland, maxdiff

Other note

Citation

Permanent link to this item

https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202001261784

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[gradu] Kauppakorkeakoulu / BIZ