Testing Motivational Appeals to Promote Legume-Enriched Foods

Background/Objectives: Legume-enriched foods are conventional products reformulated with the addition of legumes and, as such, represent a sustainable alternative to animal proteins. This study investigated the effectiveness of messages based on different food choice motives to encourage search, consumption, and future intention to consume these foods. Methods: The study involved a representative sample of 1361 Italian adults randomly assigned to one of seven experimental conditions (i.e., health, price, sensory appeal, natural content, convenience, sustainability, mood) or a control condition. Participants received three prefactual gain messages over one week. A moderated serial mediation model was estimated to test whether the effects of message exposure on future intention to consume were mediated by product search and consumption, and whether these effects varied according to participants' baseline intention to replace animal food with plant-based alternatives (i.e., intenders vs. non-intenders). Results: Reading messages focusing on mood (B = 0.337, p = 0.021), sustainability (B = 0.441, p = 0.002), health (B = 0.333, p = 0.029), and convenience (B = 0.364, p = 0.017) were associated with increased intention to consume legume-enriched foods. However, only reading sustainability messages showed a positive serial indirect effect on intention via search and consumption (B = 0.036, p = 0.044), while reading mood messages was associated with increased intention via search only (B = 0.243, p = 0.048). Among non-intenders, reading mood and health messages were associated with increased intention only when they first stimulated search behavior. Conversely, among intenders, only reading sustainability messages was associated with increased consumption. Conclusions: These results demonstrate the persuasive power of sustainability appeals in promoting legume-enriched food consumption and support the effectiveness of using recommendation messages tailored to the recipient's stage of change in terms of replacing animal food with plant-based alternatives.