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Abstract: The interest in vegan products is increasing. However, companies of vegan food innovations find themselves stuck in the niche market of vegan consumers despite seeking to move to the main market of non-vegan consumers. Therefore, it is important to understand what influences their adoption. The European chocolate market proves as highly relevant to investigate since limited research has been conducted on vegan food innovations in this market. Thus, no comprehensive overview of impact factors on the adoption behavior of vegan food innovations in the European chocolate market exists. This contribution presents the results of a Systematic Literature Review that identifies overlaps of impact factors on the adoption behavior of vegan food innovations and the consumption and purchasing behavior in the European chocolate market. Further, this forms the basis for deriving practical implications for companies in the market.
Keywords: Veganism; food innovation; European chocolate industry; adoption behavior; adoption drivers; adoption barriers; diffusion of innovation; crossing the chasm; consumer behavior; impact factors
1Introduction
Vegan food innovations are on the rise. In fact, the number of vegans in Europe has doubled in the last four years (Ho, 2020). Taking a closer look at selected European countries, we see the striking upward trends. While a French report indicates a 24 percent increase in profit from vegan and vegetarian food sales between 2018 and 2019, a staggering 10 percent of Sweden's population considered themselves vegan in 2014 (Walser & Walser, 2019; Vou, 2019). The UK further reports that the number of vegans and vegetarians quadrupled between 2016 and 2019 (Ipsos MORI, 2016; Ipsos MORI, 2019).
Subsequently, we cannot see veganism solely as a trend anymore. The numbers are continuously increasing and thereby attracting more players into the niche market of vegan food innovations. While these companies aim to leave the niche market behind and enter the main market to maximize their profit, they often face the problem of being stuck in this niche. Thus, they need to understand which impact factors influence the consumers' adoption behavior of such innovations to then be able to adapt their strategies. Previous studies about impact factors on the adoption behavior already exist, but they mostly focus on health, ethics, taste and gender as influences (Janssen et al., 2016; Haas et al., 2019),...