Vegan Croissant Switch

Imperial’s catering team explored how labelling products as vegan affected customer choices. They found that explicitly labelling items as vegan or plant-based could actually deter some customers, even when the product quality remained high.

To test this, some of the College’s top-selling croissants were replaced with vegan versions but labelled simply as ‘Plain Croissant’. Over the course of four months, no negative feedback was received. However, when the same product was later labelled as ‘Vegan Plain Croissant’, the College began to receive complaints suggesting the new croissant was not as enjoyable as the old version. On investigation, it became clear that the change in taste had not been noticed, and the feedback was solely linked to the vegan label.

This experiment highlighted that labelling can influence perception, sometimes acting as a barrier for customers. For the catering team, the key takeaway was that small switches to vegan products can be made without compromising quality, demonstrating a simple yet effective way to reduce environmental impact while maintaining customer satisfaction.