Ninth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

By addressing the issue of what we eat today, we often quote Feuerbach, who in the 1850 essay, “The Mystery of the Sacrifice,” claimed that “we are what we eat.” However, in the last decade, we are witnessing the strong global growth of consumption patterns characterized by the avoidance of certain categories of ingredients. This trend is proved by the rise of the plant-based market, mainly addressed to vegan and vegetarian consumers, but it is also showed by the strong and continuous growth of the free-from market, where negative marketing claims highlight the absence of ingredients that, right or not, have been demonized in consumer’s mind. Not only exclusion of ingredients of animal origin, for vegans and vegetarians, but also food free from sugars, palm oil, Genetically Modified Organism (GMO), and so on. In order to understand the emerging consumption patterns, our study, using questionnaire data collected (n.1500) focuses on the different motivations that push one to choose a vegan, vegetarian or flexitarian lifestyle, trying to profile different consumption patterns according to the related ethical, health, environmental or hedonistic values, as well as the right understanding of motivations which can contribute not only to better understanding these consumers, but also to predict the directions of development of the plant based food market, and clarifying whether it is just a momentary trend or a phenomenon intended to trace the path of a great change.